Conservation Resources 
HaJBreafi TWne I 



ALL ABOUT 



CALIFORNIA 





AND THE INDUCEMENTS TO SETTLE T^ TT ~ 



[for gratuitiottc 
EJLEV 



THE 

CALIFORNIA IMMIGRANT UNION. 



Shortly before the commencement of the last session of the Legislature of 
this State, the subject of immigration, to hasten the settlement of its rich farming 
lands, to diversify its agriculture, to develop its various mineral and other resour- 
ces, and to manufacture its raw products, was very fully discussed by the journals 
of San Francisco and the interior. Great interest was excited, and all were 
anxious for some practicable plan to be put in operation. Several plans were 
suggested, but owing to differences of opinion concerning matters of detail, the 
discussions were prolonged until effective action upon the subject was impossi- 
ble. Accordingly, greatly to the regret of all classes, the Legislature adjourned 
without action, and things remained as they were. 

His Excellency, the Governor of California, Hon. Henry H. Haight, in his 
biennial message to the Legislature, at the commencement of its session in 
December, 1869, alluded to the subject as follows (pages 19 and 20): 

"Immigration. — The importance of facilitating immigration from the eastern States ar^ 
Europe is felt by all who are interested in our material development. A moderate e~ 
cure of money to establish agencies in New York and Baltimore and in Europe, would proba- 
bly be of service in directing immigrants to this coast, and securing additional means for thei" 
safe and speedy transit hither. Agents of this character could do much towards diffusin j 
information as to the advantages offered by California, and making favorable arrangements 
with railway and steamship corporations. 

"We need population — not of races inferior in natural traits, pagan in religion, ignorant 
of free institutions and incapable of sharing in them without putting the very existence of those 
institutions in peril — but we need immigrants of kindred races who will constitute a conge- 
nial element and locate themselves and their families permanently upon the soil; who can be 
■'drriitted to an equal share in our political privileges, and respond to all the obligations im- 
posed upon citizens under a republican government. One great need of California is a farm- 
ing population from Germany and other European States, accustomed to the cultivation of 
the grape and other branches of agriculture, to which our climate and soil are so peculiarly 
adapted. We have millions of acres of public lands in the mountains and valleys, on the 
coast and in the interior, open to purchase and settlement at moderate prices, and a climate, 
as a whole, the most equable, genial and healthful, on the globe. For certain branches of 
agriculture, especially the production of raw silk and the culture of the grape, no climate or 
country can possess more favorable conditions ; but we need an agricultural population to 
develop our resources in this direction, and we also need an immigration of Eastern and Euro- 
pean mechanics and laborers. It is a general desire that some measures not involving extrav- 
agant expenditure might be devised to facilitate this object." 



ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA, 

In speaking thus the Governor truly expressed the general sentiment and 
feeling among all classes of people in California. Other State officers, in their 
reports, spoke of this subject in a similar manner. Extracts from the reports of 
the Surveyor-General and State Board of Agriculture are given elsewhere. They 
were commented on approvingly by the entire press of the State. Other distin- 
guished and intelligent gentlemen, on appropriate occasions, have taken pains 
to call attention to the great resources of California that await development at the 
hands of an industrious and enterprising population yet to come, to whom an 
abundance of rich territory, both public and private, is still open upon terms the 
most liberal ever offered, under laws expressly devised to hasten and encourage 
its settlement. The remarks of some of these gentlemen, and official letters of 
Federal land officers, are quoted elsewhere. 

It will be observed that while they are not disposed to underrate the import- 
ance of the establishment of manufactures in California, or of our mining inter- 
ests, all recognize the fact that the most pressing want of the State is an increase 
of her land-owning farming population, and a more diversified and scientific 
system of agriculture than that which now prevails. Nature has done for Cali- 
nia all that could be asked at her hands. It remains only for her people to 
properly improve her gifts. Those who are prepared to do so may rest assured 
of a hearty welcome at the hands of all classes of our people. 

A number of the leading and most public-spirited men of -San Francisco, 
engaged in various kinds of business, many of whose names are known in the 
marts of commerce in all parts of the world, fully appreciating the importance 
of immigration to California, formed themselves into an association which is duly 
incorporated under the laws of this State by the title of the " California Immi- 
grant Union." It is supported by voluntary contributions. Its object, as stated 
in its certificate of incorporation, is " to encourage immigration from Europe and 
tern parts of the United States to the State of California." At present its 
officers desire to encourage only the immigration of intelligent agriculturists, who 
are able to come here and locate on government lands or purchase farms, and 
commence business with their own means. They propose to facilitate the travel 
of such immigrants by every possible means, to aid them in making suitable 
selections of public or private lands, and to furnish them gratuitously with relia- 
ble information concerning any part of California in which they may desire to 
settle. Eventually the operations of the California Immigrant Union will be 
extended further. Its principal office is in San Francisco. It will have its corre- 
spondents and agents wherever its operations extend, from whom its publications 
and such information or advice . as emigrants to California may require can be 
obtained. All services rendered or information afforded to immigrants are entirely 
gratuitous. Its members expect no direct profit from the operations of the 
association, but merely in common with all other citizens to share in the benefit 
which an increase of our agricultural and productive population will insure. 
They have simply voluntarily assumed a duty which, in all other new States, is 
recognized as devolving properly upon the government. 

This pamphlet is among the first of its publications. The information it 



INTRODTJ CTION. 



5 



contains is drav»n from official and other sources and may be accepted as entirely 
reliable. It has been our aim to state nothing which the facts do not abun- 
dantly warrant. We have refrained from saying much that might have been said, 
which, though well understood by all Californians, might be regarded with 
distrust by strangers or excite undue expectations and lead to disappointment. 
They will be better pleased to find our statements exceeded by the facts. Our 
fisheries and lumber business are very important, and growing rapidly. Our 
mineral resources are here scarcely more than alluded to, though our annual 
export of treasure speaks for itself. It is not that we undervalue our gold, silver, 
copper, tin, iron and quicksilver mines, that we say little concerning them ; but 
because it is not a mining, but a farming, population, that we most desire. What 
we say and wish understood everywhere, is, that no country offers inducements to 
men of moderate means, but of enterprising and industrious habits, and particularly 
to agriculturists, equal to those presented by California. The facts here given 
bear out this statement. Those who, in older countries, could never hope to 
own the lands they lease and cultivate, may here readily become landed propri- 
etors, and, in the course of a very few years, surround themselves and families 
with all the comforts of life, in a climate that is unequaled for salubrity, and 
upon a soil that yields the richest and most varied rewards to the toil of the hus- 
bandman. Our laws are more liberal than those of the older States. They are 
particularly favorable to poor men. There is no imprisonment for debt, and the 
unfortunate debtor and his family are protected from merciless creditors by our 
liberal homestead and exemption laws. The State provides liberally for the 
education of all its children; the State University and its public schools, from the 
lowest to the highest are liberally endowed,- equal to the best in the world, 
and open freely to the children of the poorest citizen. Every county receives its 
share, pro rata, of the State School Fund, and wherever there are in a district 
sufficient children to form a school, the parents are entitled to demand, as a 
right, that a teacher, paid from the public treasury, shall be supplied them. 

In conclusion, we invite all who desire information concerning the resources 
of California, and the lands, public or private, open to settlement, and whether 
they desire to come here singly or in numbers — to apply to us or our agents, by 
letter or in person, and we shall take pleasure in furnishing it or enabling them 
to obtain it, and to assist them otherwise in the manner above stated. With these 
remarks, we invite a careful perusal of the other portions of these pages, in 
order that the reader may see whether it will not be as much to his own interest 
to settle in California as to the interest of California to have him settle here 
with his family.. 



California Immigrant Union. 

B34 California Street, San FrancisccvCal. 

Lock Bos, Post Office, 1550. ' 



HONORARY COMMITTEE. 

His Excellency NEWTON BOOTH, Governor-of California. 



Hon. H. H. HAIGHT, 
Hon. J. G. DOWNEY, 
Hon. LELAND STANFORD. 

Hon. WM. ALVORD, 

Mayor-of San Francisco. 

Hon. E. W. McKINSTRY, 

A. S. HALLIDIE, 

President Mechanic's Institute, 

H. D. BACON, 

HORATIO McPHERSON, 

JOHN O. EARL, 

H. BARROIHLET, 

CHAS. E. McLANE, 

L. GOTTIG, 

W. C. RALSTON, 

GEO. H. HOWARD, 

J. MORA MOSS, 

L. H. BONESTELL, 

A. SELIGMAN, 



British -Consul. 



H. P. LIVERMORE. 
WM. LANE BOOKER, 

L. A. BOOTH, 
J. W. STOW, 
JOS. A. -DONOHOE, 
H. M. NEWHALL, 
L. B. BENCHLEY, 
ALEX. WELL, 
HENRY BALZER, 
GEO. F. HOOPER, 
W. W. HOLLISTER. 



SACRAMENTO. 

EDGAR MILLS, 
P. H. RUSSELL, 
A. P. CATLIN, 
GEORGE W. CHESLEY, 
JOHN H. CARROLL 



ABOARD OF DIRECTORS. 



Maj. RICHARD P.JHAMMOND, 

GEO. H. EGGERS, 

C. S. CAPP, 

WM. T. COLEMAN, 

WM. NORRIS, 

H. J. BOOTH, 

Dr. J. F. MORSE, 

F. ROEDING, 



H. B. TICHENOR, 
MARK HOPKINS, 
M. S. LATHAM, 
T. H. SELBY, 
WM. HOLLIS, 
PETER SPRECKLES, 
JOHN ROSENFELD, 
S. O. PUTNAM, 



President. . WILLIAM T. COLEMAN. 

First Vice-President JMAJ. RICHARD P. HAMMOND. 

Second Vice-President. GEORGE H. EGGERS. 

Third Vice-President C. S. CAPP. 

Secretary FELLX J. HOIN. 

Treasurer J. SELIGMAN & CO. 

General Agent (534 California Street, San Francisco) W. H. MARTIN. 

Agent for Denmark, Sweden xind Norway GEORGE, GRIERSON, Copenhagen. 

Correspondent at Hamburg C. W. BALZER, of Messrs. Balzer & Co. 

German Traveling Agent P. WOLFINGER. 

General Eastern Agent LOUIS DE RONCERAY, No. 5 P.O. Ayertue, Baltimore, Md. 

Correspondent at Bremen ■ 4 E. KRUSE. 



CALIFORNIA 

A.S A HOME FOR THE EMIGRANT. 



A BRIEF STATEMENT OF 



ITS PUBLIC LANDS, WAGES, CLIMATE, AGRICULTURE, MANU- 
FACTURES, ATTRACTIONS AND GENERAL BUSINESS. 



By JOHN S. HITTELL. 



A PRIZE ESSAY, 

WRITTEN FOR THE CALIFORNIA IMMIGRANT UNION, 
AND PUBLISHED UNDER ITS AUSPICES. 



Migration as a Source of Wealth. ,J 7 

ft 
Migration has been one of the chief sources of individual wealth in the pres- 
ent century. The old centers of civilization had become overcrowded ; the 
land was unable to sustain the multitude; poverty and misery were the result for 
a large proportion of the people. The establishment of American Independ- 
ence, the adoption by the United States of a free government and a liberal land 
policy, the invitation to Europeans to become citizens, the invention of cheap 
and speedy means of transportation by land and water, and the dissemination 
abroad of information about America, led to a great peaceful migration, the 
like of which had never been witnessed before. In the last eighty years six mil- 
lion five hundred thousand persons have crossed the Atlantic to become perma- 
nent residents of the United States, and at a moderate estimate they added each, 
on an average, one thousand dollars to the wealth of the country, by merely 
making their homes here, and much more by the labor which they did after 
their arrival. Europe was benefited by their departure. There was more room 
and more comfort for those left behind; and soon there was more trade, because 
the emigrants prospered in their new homes and were enabled to purchase many 

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventy, 
by The California Immigrant Union, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for 
She District of California. 



ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 

comforts and luxuries which they never could have afforded if they had remained 
in their native lands. They also supplied Europe with provisions and the raw 
material for manufactures much cheaper than they could be obtained from other 
sources. Thus all parties were benefited. 

Migration, as a source of wealth, has not yet ceased, and will not cease for 
many years to come. It is proper that the enterprising and industrious should 
migrate from old States, which offer no good chance for them, to new countries, 
which present more favorable opportunities 

Advantages of California for Emigrants. 

The present population of California is sparse; and there is the more room 
therefore for the growth of trade, and more opportunities for new comers to 
establish themselves in business. It is far better for the emigrant to go to a new 
country than to an old one; better to go to one where the population will double 
than to one where it will increase only twenty per cent, in five years. The popu- 
lation of Illinois is 2,500,000, and that of California is 600,000. An addition of 
1,000,000 is only forty per cent, to the former, and one hundred and sixty-six 
per cent, to the latter ; and the increase in the value of land and in the amount 
of trade is about in the same proportion. The denser the population the smaller 
will be the relative growth and the profits necessarily accompanying growth. 
Other things being equal, the emigrant should always prefer the sparsely-settled 
States, and California has in this respect a decided advantage over the more 
populous country in the northern part of the Mississippi Valley. 

The following are some of the advantages of California for emigrants : 

* 

"* 1. Many railroads will soon be built. The road from Stockton to Visalia, a 
distance of one hundred and sixty miles, will run through the richest grain dis- 
trict of the State, a large part of it now uncultivated because there is no mode of 
transporting produce to market at any expense that farmers can afford to pay. 

The Oregon and California Railroad is now being built from Marysville to the 
State line, two hundred and thirty miles, opening up the northern part of the 
Sacramento Valley, and bringing to California the trade of Oregon and Wash- 
ington. Congress has granted 12,800 acres of land for each mile, and requires 
the construction of twenty miles every year. . A hundred miles are to be com- 
pleted in 1870. 

The Vallejo and Cloverdale Railroad, seventy miles long, will open up So- 
noma and Mendocino counties, which are among the richest parts of the State. 

The Copperopolis Railroad, thirty-eight miles long, running eastward from 
Stockton, will be built soon. Congress has given 230,000 acres of land to the 
road, and the company owning the franchise say it shall be built this year. 

2. Promises are made that the thirty-second parallel Southern Pacific Rail- 
road shall be built soon. 

A number of other railroad projects are seriously entertained, and some of 
them will probably be carried to completion in a few years. Among these are, 
the Saucelito and Humboldt Bay Road ; the Southern Pacific Railroad, from 



CALIFORNIA AS A HOME FOR THE EMIGRANT. V) 

Gilroy to Fort Mohave; the Beckwourth Pass Road, from Oroville to Ogden, the 
Vallejo and Stockton Road, to connect those two points ; the road from Santa 
Cruz to Redwood City; the road from Santa Cruz to Gilroy, by way of Watson- 
ville; the road from Gilroy to Monterey; and the road from Gilroy to San Diego 
along the coast. 

It looks like promising much to speak of so many roads as likely to be built ; 
but in the last five years six hundred of the Central Pacific, one hundred and 
twenty-five of the Western Pacific, one hundred and thirty-eight of the California 
Pacific (running from Vallejo to Sacramento, Marysville and Calistoga), thirty 
of the Southern Pacific (from San Jose to Gilroy), forty of the California and 
Oregon, and twenty of the Los Angeles — making nine hundred and fifty-three 
miles in all — have been built ; and these roads will serve as a basis and stimulus 
for others. 

The construction of railroads implies the possession of important resources, 
the rapid development of industry, and the increase of population and wealth. 
All the roads mentioned, including the Southern Pacific, to terminate at San 
Diego, and the Northern Pacific, to terminate at Puget Sound, will contribute to 
attract people to all parts of the coast, and create a large trade to concentrate at 
San Francisco Bay. 

3. The Sacramento River is navigable from the bay northward to Sacra- 
mento, one hundred and twenty miles, for large, commodious steamers, as fine 
as any upon the rivers of the eastern States. They ply daily from Sacramento 
northward ; smaller light-draft steamers ply regularly to Red Bluff, two hun- 
dred and fifty miles further, and on the Feather River sixty miles to Marys- 
ville. The San Joaquin River is also nayigable for large steamers which ply 
daily to Stockton, one hundred and twenty miles. Above Stockton, light-draft 
steamers ascend towards Visalia, two hundred miles, and also for some distance 
up its branches, the Stanislaus and Tuolumne, and also the Mokelumne River. 
The light-draft steamers on all these rivers carry with them large barges in which 
the crops of the farmers, firewood and other products, are cheaply and rapidly 
transported to a market at San Francisco at very low rates. A number of the 
creeks and sloughs emptying into the Bay of San Francisco are also navigable 
and ascended by numerous steamers and sailing craft, which carry freight and 
passengers at reasonable prices. Thus, a large portion of the interior of the 
State, and particularly both of its main valleys are, to a great extent, independ- 
ent of railroads, while the competition between land and water carriage insures 
low rates of freights and fares on both. 

The people of California are distinguished for intelligence, enterprise, indus- 
try, and cordiality of manners, They welcome strangers, and by the improve- 
ments which they are continually making, they attract business and give value to 
the land. The emigrant should never forget that the greatest resource of a coun- 
try — better than gold, silver, coal, iron, wine or silk, or than all together — is an 
educated, orderly, energetic population, such as California has. 

Proximity to a main route of commerce is desirable, because the throng of 



IO ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 

passengers and freight will create business and pay profits for millions of people, 
and make a market for produce raised near the line. Proximity to a terminal 
point on such a route is also desirable. Such a point is San Francisco. Nearly 
all the enlightenment, industry and wealth of the world, are in the northern tem- 
perate zone, in which a great steam line of travel now extends from Constanti- 
nople westward to Shanghae, or from the western to the eastern shore of Asia, 
across two continents and two oceans. There is only one point on the whole 
line which the traveler circumnavigating the world by steam cannot avoid, and 
that is San Francisco. 

California has a number of remarkable natural attractions, which will draw 
visitors from all parts of the world. The fame of Yosemite, the Big Trees, the 
Geysers, Monte Diablo, St. Helena, Clear Lake, and the California Alps, is co- 
extensive with Christendom, and they will in time contribute much to enrich 
the State. 

The emigrant wants to go to a country that has a large area of good land un- 
occupied. California has, according to estimate, 80,000,000 acres of tillable 
I4nd, of which only 5,000,000 acres are inclosed, and more than 48,000,000 
acres remain open to purchase. Much of this land is remarkably fertile, some 
producing more wheat, more grapes and fruit, to the acre than any land in the 
Atlantic States or Europe. 

The climate of California contributes vastly to the enjoyments of life. The 
winters in the lowlands are so warm that snow and ice are great rarities. The 
thermometer never remains at the freezing point for twenty-four hours. There 
is no intense suffering from cold. Along the middle coast the summers are 
always cool, and heavy woolen clothing is worn throughout the year in San Fran- 
cisco. In the interior and on the southern coast, the summer days are warm, 
but the nights are always cool. California has a climate very similar to that of 
Italy, and it is the only district in the New World so favored in that respect. 
Many thousands of Europeans go to the Italian peninsula on account of the 
climate, and large numbers of Americans will resort to this State. 

The sanitary condition of California is excellent. The constant trade winds 
on the coast keep the air in continual motion, and any unwholesome exhalations 
from the earth are immediately carried away. The numerous diseases that result 
elsewhere from severe cold, exhausting heat by night as well as by day, cloudy 
weather and a stagnant atmosphere, are here lacking. Fever and ague are found 
in the lowlands of the Sacramento basin, and the fogs of the middle coast are 
not good for diseases of the throat and lungs; but otherwise, the climate of Cali- 
fornia may be regarded as remarkably conducive to health and longevity. 

The climate has many advantages for the farmer. He needs no barn to 
shelter his grain, no stable for his cattle. His horses will work and his cows 
yield milk tolerably well if they never get any cultivated food. He can thresh 
without stacking his grain; he can work all through the winter; he can grow a 
great variety of fruits which will not thrive in the Atlantic States or northern 
Europe. All domestic animals are healthier, increase more rapidly and thrive 
with less care, than in the Atlantic States. 



CALIFORNIA AS A HOME FOR THE EMIGRANT 11 

There is a great opening for manufactures, which must be built up, because 
the abundance of raw material, the great cost of exporting it and reimporting the 
manufactured articles, and the distance from the manufacturing centers on the 
No ,h Atlantic will give protection to home production. 

The State possesses a variety of valuable minerals. The richest mines of the 
northern hemisphere are here. The annual production of gold is more than 
$20,coo,ooo. There are also valuable mines of quicksilver, tin, copper, coal, 
manganese, and beds of marble, slate, sulphur, porcelain clay, soapstone and 
asphaltum. In the foot hills of the Sierra Nevada millions of acres contain gold 
in quantities sufficient to pay well at some future day. At present, there are 
many farmers who sluice out the ravines on their farms with profit in the inter- 
vals of agricultural labor. 

All these advantages must infallibly result in attracting to California a large 
migration, and consequently land will rise in value and trade will increase with 
rapidity, thus securing a large profit to those who settle here soon. But if my 
anticipations of the growth of the State should prove too sanguine, those who 
come here will still have the satisfaction of living in a country where they can 
enjoy life without painful exertion. 

Disadvantages. 
The country has some drawbacks. There is an occasional drought, about 
once in seven years on an average; but even then our wheat crop is nearly up to 
the ordinary yield in most of the Eastern States. When the bare plains shall be 
covered with trees and cultivated, we can hope for more rain and for more 
regular seasons then we have at present; and it is probable that irrigating canals, 
like those of Lombardy, will, in time, supply water from the mountains to large 
districts. In the Sacramento basin, we have occasional floods, but they are little 
worse than those in the Atlantic States. Earthquakes are not uncommon, but 
they are usually very slight, and have thus far resulted in very little loss of life, 
while the number of persons killed in other countries, as in the Mississippi Val- 
ley, by meteoric phenomena, such as lightning, tornadoes and sunstroke, is very 
considerable every year. The high rates of wages and interest, which are dou- 
ble those in the Eastern States, are disadvantages for some classes, but they are 
advantages for others. 

How to Obtain Title to Public Land. 

The public land of the United States is surveyed or unsurveyed. All, unless 
specially reserved, is open to settlement and occupation by any citizen or white 
man who has declared his intention to become a citizen; and if unsurveyed, the 
settler will be permitted to obtain the land, unless wanted for some public pur- 
pose. If it is not surveyed when he goes upon the land, he will get, not per- 
haps the exact tract which he occupies, but one hundred and sixty acres bounded 
by the lines run by the Government, which lines may not agree with his own. 

The surveyed public lands are divided into townships six miles square; each 
township is divided into thirty-six sections, each a mile square and containing 



12 ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 

six hundred and forty acres ; each section is divided into four quarter sections 
each half a mile square of one hundred and sixty acres; and each quarter is 
divided into four quarter-quarters of forty acres each. The township and sec- 
tion lines all run either north and south or east and west. The sections are 
always numbered in the same order, commencing with one on the northeast cor- 
ner, running west to six; section seven is south of six, and the numbers run east 
to twelve, which is under one; on the next row they run back to the west line 
and so on back and forth. Thus, the sections along the east line of the town- 
ship running from north and south are one, twelve, thirteen, twenty-four, twenty- 
five and thirty-six; and on the west line commencing at the top and running 
south they are six, seven, eighteen, nineteen, thirty and thirty-one. The town- 
ships in California are all measured from some mountain; in the middle of the 
State from Mount Diablo; in the sduth from Mount San Bernardino. Measur- 
ing on the meridian, we say a piece of land is in a " town " of such a number, 
north or south; measuring east or west it is in such a " range." Coloma, where 
gold was discovered by Marshall, is in town eleven north, range ten east from 
the meridian and base of Mount Diablo. Counting six miles each way we 
ascertain that the federal township of Coloma is sixty-six miles north and sixty 
miles east of the summit of Diablo. The quarter sections are respectively the 
northeast, northwest, southwest and southeast, and each quarter-quarter is desig- 
nated in the same manner. Thus, for example, a deed conveying the southwest 
quarter of the southwest quarter of section eighteen, in town three north, range 
three west, meridian and base of Mount Diablo, is explicit enough to enable 
any surveyor or any person familiar with the land system of the United States to 
find the place at once on the map. The smallest " legal subdivision " hi the 
general surveys is forty acres, or a quarter-quarter. 

The public lands are disposed of by sale at auction, private entry, pre-emp- 
tion and homestead claim. After land is surveyed into sections or sectionized, 
it is advertised for sale, and all that is not occupied by pre-emptors or home- 
steaders who have filed notices of their claims, is sold to the highest bidder who 
bids $1.25 per acre, or more. That which is not sold may be taken at private 
entry at $1.25 per acre, in such amounts as the purchasers want. Poor men 
usually get land by pre-emption or homestead claim. 

The pre-emptor selects his quarter section of land, settles on it, within thirty 
days after his settlement files a declaratory statement in the United States Land 
Office that he has settled on it, builds a house, improves the land, and within one 
year from the settlement files an affidavit and proves by two witnesses that he 
has built a house and improved the land; and then on paying $1.25 per acre in 
greenbacks, or some Government warrant receivable for land, gets a patent. If 
he settles on the land before it is offered at public sale, he must pay up before 
the sale. Any adult male citizen or adult white male foreigner who can become 
a citizen, and every widow citizen who has not three hundred and twenty acres 
of other land, and does not move from his or her land to the public land, can 
pre-empt once. 

Homestead claims can be taken by any one entitled to be a pre-emptor. The 



CALIFORNIA AS A HOME FOR THE EMIGRANT. 13 

claim may be for one hundred and sixty acres or less in legal subdivisions. The 
applicant goes upon the land, files his application, builds a house, and cultivates 
the land for five years; files an affidavit sustained by two witnesses of continuous 
residence and cultivation, and then gets his patent on payment of $22 fees if he 
has one hundred and sixty acres, or $11 if he has eighty acres. The land is not 
liable for debts incurred before settlement. If the person who has filed a home- 
stead claim wishes to get a patent before the end of five years he can do so by 
paying as much as it would have been sold for to a pre-emptor. 

The declaratory statements need no witnesses; and the affidavits are all taken 
by the land officers without charge. It is not necessary to employ a lawyer unless 
there is a dispute about the land. The chief expense is in going to the land 
office with two witnesses. 

The Public Lands of California. 

According to the United States surveys and estimates, California contains 
188,981 square miles, or 120,947,840 acres; of which 30,408,426 acres have 
been surveyed, and of these 16,409,422 have been disposed of by the Federal 
Government before the first of July, 1868 — the latest date to which we have a 
report. For schools and educational purposes 6,765,404 have been granted; 
6,030,814 have been taken under Mexican grants; 500,000 have been granted 
for internal improvements, 116,382 for railroads and 6,400 for public buildings; 
1,198,874 have been sold, 368 ? 32i have been taken under the Homestead 
Act, 470,452 under military warrants, 580,572 under "scrip," 343,169 under 
swamp locations, and 28,129 under Indian scrip. Since June, 1868, nearly 
2,000,000 acres more have been disposed of, and 86,000,000 acres of public 
land in the State are open to occupation. There are 50,000 square miles in the 
coast valleys and mountains, 50,000 in the Sierra Nevada, 30,000 in the low 
land of the Sacramento Basin, 30,000 in the Utah Basin, which has no outlet to 
the sea, 20,000 in the basin of the Colorado River, and 8,000 in the basin of 
the Klamath. 

Much land in Utah and Colorado basins, three-fourths of that in the Sierra 
Nevada and Klamath basins, and a third of that in the Coast District may be 
considered as too rugged or barren to pay for cultivation in this century, with the 
exception of small patches. There remain 30,000 square miles in the Sacra- 
mento Basin, 32,000 in the Coast, 12,500 in the Sierra Nevada, and 2,000 in the 
Klamath Basin; an aggregate of 95,000 square miles, or 88,000,000 acres, as 
available for tillage — half of it still belonging to the Government. No precisse 
measurements have been made, but these figures are near enough to give a cor- 
rect general idea. The area valuable for pasturage but unfit for tillage is half as 
great. 

The acres of land inclosed number 5,261,000, or about one in sixteen of that 
citable for tillage; but only 2,658,000, or one in thirty-two, are tilled. The 
quantity held in private ownership is not known precisely, for large purchases 
fb.ich have not been reported have been made lately; some Mexican claims are 
^t yet finally settled; and some railroad donations have not been perfected. 



14 ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 

To the Central Pacific Road, 1,394,000 acres have been granted; and to the 
Western Pacific, an area which probably does not exceed 500,00c acres of 
federal land. The companies have complied with all the conditions of these 
grants, and have, or soon will have, the patents. The California and Oregon 
Railroad Company are to have about 2,800,000 acres; but only a small part of 
the road is built. The Copperopolis Railroad is entitled to 230,000 acres, if 
built within the period fixed by law. The Southern Pacific Railroad claimed 
6,000,000 acres, but has not built the road so as to perfect the claim. We have 
here a total of 10,424,000 acres claimed by railroad companies. 

The area of the confirmed Mexican land claims is 6,000,000 acres. 

The most fertile land and that nearest to the market is occupied. The pres- I 
ent settlers are men of more than ordinary intelligence, and they have sought \ 
to get the best. Nearly all the level bottom lands in the coast valleys, from Lat. 
39 deg. to the southern boundary, are taken up, and so are the best parts of the 
low lands in the Sacramento Valley within one hundred and fifty miles of San 
Francisco, and of the San Joaquin Valley within seventy-five miles of Stockton. 
All the land on which it is supposed that grain can be grown with a profit, at 
present, have passed out of the control of the Government. But the future 
profit depends to a great extent upon the means of transportation, and large dis- 
tricts that are now too far from market will become valuable when they shall 
have been made accessible by railroads. 

Many districts also may pay well when supplied with water by irrigation; and 
many others without irrigation may pay better in grapes and various fruits than 
any grain fields. 

It is my confident belief that the hills will pay better in wine, dried fruit, pre- 
served fruit, fresh fruit and nuts, than the low lands will in grains. 

Nearly all the land belonging to the United States is offered for sale at $1.25 
per acre, and ie called "minimum;" but in some places all the odd sections 
within ten or twenty miles of a railroad have been given to the road, and then 
the even sections are not sold for less than $2.50 and they are called " double 
minimum " lands; and the pre-emptor and homesteader cannot take more than 
eighty acres of them. 

It is impossible to explain here all the details of the federal land system, but 
I have given the main points, and the others can readily be learned by inquiry 
of intelligent farmers in those districts where there are public lands for sale. At 
least forty out of the fifty counties have some public lands, which can be got foi % 
$1.25 per acre; but near the center of the State this unoccupied land is usually 
hilly or covered with brush, so as to diminish its value. Good grape or grain 
land in the coast valleys within sixty miles of the Bay of San Francisco is gene- | 
rally worth from $20 to $100 per acre — the price being higher in proportion to { 
proximity to navigable water. In the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, fer- ! 
tiie land not subject to overflow ranges from $5 to $20 per acre, except near th 
larger towns, where it is higher. The prices in Los Angeles County are aboi' 
the same, except that in the latter county lands that can be irrigated command 
higher figure. ( 



CALIFORNIA AS A HOME FOR THE EMIGRANT. K 

Land Titles. 

Land is usually sold in California, not by warrantee, but by "bargain and 
sale" deed, conveying, by the words "grant, bargain and sell," which imply and 
covenant that the grantor has not previously sold the land or permitted it to be 
incumbered in any way since it came into his hands. It warrants that he gives 
as good a title as he got. But as to the value of the title when the grantor 
received it, the grantee must take the risk. It is the custom for the grantor to pro- 
vide an abstract of title, made by a professional searcher; or the grantee gets the 
abstract, and if it is not satisfactory the grantor takes it and pays for it. The 
abstract is submitted to a lawyer, and land should not be purchased without this 
precaution; and, with it, the grantee is safe. A poor man should not buy land 
the title of which is not clear, and he should always stipulate that the search is 
to cost him nothing if the title is not clear. It is bad policy to buy in a hurry. 
The broker will often say that somebody else wants the piece, but that is -only a 
trick to induce an inexperienced man to buy quickly. The buyer should always 
find out what other lands are for sale in the vicinity, ascertain their prices, com- 
pare their situations and advantages, and thus make certain that the bargain 
when closed is a good one. 

The Extreme Northern Mining Counties. 
The mining counties at the northern end of the State are Klamath, Del Norte, 
Trinity, Siskiyou and Shasta, between Lat. 40 deg. and 42 deg. The first three 
are very mountainous, and have only a small area of land capable of cultivation. 
In the eastern end of Siskiyou there are some excellent natural pastures. Del 
Norte and Klamath front upon the ocean^ and have valuable forests of redwood. 
The California and Oregon Railroad will run through Siskiyou and Shasta. 
The latter county has some fertile unoccupied land, which will probably rise 
much in value when made accessible by railroads. I head this paragraph " The 
Extreme Northern Mining Counties," because the term " Northern Mines," is 
frequently applied to all the mining counties north of Amador. 

The Main Belt of Mining Counties. 
The main belt of gold mining counties, extending from Lat. 40 deg. 30 min, 
to 37 deg. on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, consists of Plumas, Sierra, 
Butte, Nevada, Placer, El Dorado, Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne and Mariposa 
counties. The first two are very mountainous over their entire area, nearly all 
their surface being more than four thousand feet above the sea; the others have 
their eastern borders high up in the mountains and their western low enough 
to include much land valuable for agriculture. All of these counties have fine 
forests of pine and fir between the altitudes of three thousand and six thousand 
feet; and the gold mines range generally from one thousand to three thousand 
feet. The Beckwourth Pass Railroad will run for seventy miles through the mid- 
dle of Plumas, which has a large extent of deep beds of auriferous gravel that 
wiS not be exhausted for many years to come, and also rich beds of iron. Butte, 



f6 \ ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 

adjoining Plumas, though classed as a mining county, depends chiefly for the 
support of its population on agriculture. Its Western border reaches to the 
Sacramento River. The Beckwourth Pass Railroad will run for twenty-five 
miles in the county. The Northern California Railroad connects the county 
seat, Oroville, with Marysville, and through that place with Sacramento and 
Vallejo; and the California and the Oregon Railroad will run thirty miles through 
the western part of the county. Butte is rich in pine forests, which yield con- 
siderable quantities of resin and turpentine. Nevada is the most populous and 
prosperous of the mining counties. It includes Grass Valley, the chief center 
of quartz mining ; and the Blue Lead, a deposit of rich auriferous gravel in the 
bed of a dead river, extends across the county and yields considerable quantities i 
of gold to hydraulic and tunnel miners. There are some mulberry plantations 
in the western part of the county. The Central Pacific Railroad runs seventy ' 
miles in Placer County, and takes half of the fine timber in the higher districts, 
and also in the adjoining counties of Nevada and El Dorado. The discovery 
of gold in 1848, by Marshall, was made in the latter county, but now the placers 
are nearly exhausted; quartz mining rarely was profitable, and a majority of the 
people are turning their attention to agriculture. The lower parts of the county 
are well adapted to horticulture; and vineyards and orchards abound, though 
there is still room for many more. El Dorado is directly east of Sacramento, 
and has the main wagon road leading across the Sierra. 

Amador also has a wagon road across the Sierra, but there is very little travel 
on it. The Mother Lode, or great quartz vein of the State, reaches into Amador, 
and is very rich at the Amador, Oneida, Keystone and several other mines, 
which form a cluster ranking next in productiveness at present to Grass Valley. 

The Mother Lode also runs through Calaveras, and some of its mines have 
been very profitable, but none is yielding much more than enough to cover ex- 
penses at present. The most productive quartz mines of the county are on small 
veins east of Mokelumne Hill. In the western part of Calaveras there is a belt 
of copper, in which some large deposits of rich ore have been found. There 
are also beds of slate, manganese and iron ore. The most accessible grove of 
Big Trees is in this county. 

Tuolumne produced, in early times, more large nuggets of gold than any 
other part of the State. The Mother Lode passes through it, but does not pro- 
duce much. There are, however, large deposits of rich auriferous quartz, and 
they will be worked at a profit at some time not far distant. Tuolumne has 
several groves of Big Trees, a big chasm in the mountains similar to Yosemite, 
and a wagon road across the Sierra, with little travel over it, 

Mariposa possesses the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Rancho, which 
last was sold for $10,000,000 to a New York company. The rancho, when sold, 
was producing about $100,000 monthly; but immediately after the sale the pro- 
duction declined rapidly and soon fell to nothing. But the mines are rich, and 
they are now again worked at a profit. 



CALIFORNIA AS A HOME FOR THE EMIGRANT. 

The Silver Mining Counties. 
The silver mining counties are Alpine, Mono and Inyo; the first partly and 
the other two wholly east of the main ridge of the Sierra. They extend from 
Lat. 36 deg. to 38 deg. 40 min. Most of their area is more than four thousand 
feet above the sea, and they have many peaks rising to thirteen thousand feet. 
Mono Lake is in Mono County, and Owens Lake in Inyo. The latter county 
has a large number of lodes of rich argentiferous galena, which is now reduced 
at a profit by smelting. The chief center of the mines is Cerro Gordo. 

The Northern Coast Counties. 
The northern agricultural coast counties, commencing at the north, are Hum- 
boldt, Mendocino, Sonoma and Marin, fronting on the Ocean, and Napa and 
Solano, fronting on San Pablo and Suisun bays, and Lake, north of Solano. The 
first two are composed mostly of government land, which will become very val- 
uable when the railroad from Vallejo or Saucelito is built to Humboldt Bay. 
The rainfall is greater here than at San Francisco. Sonoma, Napa and Solano 
contain some of the prettiest and most fertile valleys of the State, and the last 
two are already well supplied with railroads. Lake has valuable deposits of 
quicksilver, sulphur and borax. 

The Southern Coast Counties. 
The southern coast counties, commencing at the south, are San Diego, San 
Bernardino, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, Santa 
Cruz, San Mateo, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa. The 
last three front on San Francisco Bay, and the rest, save San Bernardino, front 
on the Ocean. All have some of their territory, and most of them have all of 
it, west of the main ridge of the Coast Mountains. The most fertile lands in all 
these counties are held under grants made by Mexico, and large quantities have 
been bought of late from the Federal Government. In San Luis Obispo and 
the counties farther south, there are large areas of good soil, open to pre-empt- 
ors and homestead claimants. From Santa Barbara to San Diego there is less 
rain than farther north. Timber suitable for fencing or houses is scarce, save in 
the mountains. Excepting a small railroad twenty miles long at Los Angeles, 
there is no railroad in the State south of Santa Clara County; but there must be 
a coast line, and it will do much to develop many resources now neglected. 

The San Joaquin Valley. 
The San Joaquin Valley counties, commencing at the south, are Kern, Tu- 
lare, Fresno, Merced, Stanislaus and San Joaquin. In so large a district there 
is, of course, a great variety in the character of the soil. Portions near the San 
Joaquin River and in the vicinity of Stockton, have a deep, black, waxy or 
"adobe " soil, which is very productive. Nearer the foothills the land is gravelly. 
Other districts have a light, sandy loam, which is cultivated with very little labor 
and has yielded fine crops, often enabling farmers to pay for their lands in one 
or two years. The quantitv of rain that falls is less than in the coast counties. 



l8 ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 

There is very little timber, so that no expense is incurred in clearing the land* 
There are also large quantities of "tule" or overflowed lands immediately along 
the river, much of which can readily be reclaimed, and will then form one of the 
most productive portions of the State. Large tracts of the fine lands of this im- 
mense valley have been taken up under the land laws of the United States within 
a few years past, by capitalists who were aware of its desirable location and great 
prospective value. They are, however, offering farms and large tracts for sale 
to actual settlers at from three to five dollars an acre, and on easy terms as to 
credit. But there is still a large area open to purchasers and settlers. A rail- 
road to run from Stockton to Visalia will pass through all the counties, save 
Kern. 

[Concerning this valley, see remarks of the Surveyor- General, and extract from 
speech of Dr. E. S. Holden, elsewhere.} 

The Sacramento Valley. 

The Sacramento Valley counties, commencing at the north, are Tehama, 
Colusa, Yolo, Yuba, Sutter and Sacramento. Shasta, Butte and Placer, classed 
among the mining counties, have some valley land. The soil of the Sacra- 
mento Valley is mostly a fertile, gravelly clay or sandy loam. About one million 
acres along the banks of the river and the mouths of its lower tributaries, are 
"tule" or swamp lands; and immediately in the rear of these, the low, level lands 
that are dry during ordinary seasons are subject to overflow in times of flood. 
This is for the want of a comprehensive plan of levees aud canals, to keep the 
river within its banks or relieve it of surplus waters when necessary. Plans for 
this purpose are under consideration in Congress, and have been recommended 
to the State Legislature, but not yet acted on. In the mean time, detached tracts 
and districts of these overflowed lands, and the adjoining lands subject to occa- 
sional overflow, are being protected by levees and embankments extending out 
from the foothills, the cost of which is defrayed by pro.rata assessments upon 
the lands benefited. When thus protected or reclaimed, such lands are among 
the best and most profitable to cultivate, since the soil is a deep alluvium, and its 
natural moisture renders a failure of crops unknown. 

In the southern part of the valley the land is mostly taken up; in the north- 
ern part much of it still belongs to the Government. The California and Ore- 
gon Railroad will run through Sacramento, Placer, Yuba and Tehama, besides 
other counties; the California Pacific runs through Yolo and Sutter; and the- 
valley is so situated that a number of other railroads must run through it. 

Lassen, in the Sierra Nevada and most of it east of the main ridge, is a farm- 
ing county, nearly all of it more than four thousand feet above the sea. The 
people supply poultry, eggs, butter, vegetables and grain, to Nevada. 



CALIFORNIA AS A HOME FOR THE EMIGRANT. 



19 



RATES OE WAGES. 
Prepared for the Bureau of Statistics, U. S. Treasury Department, by VVm. H. Martin, 
Gen'l Agent California Immigrant Union, 534 California Street, San Francisco. 

Jan. 1875. , ___ 



Occupations and Terms. 



Wages. 



Architects 

Artists 

Bakers, per month and board 

Barbers, per month 

Bell-hangers, per day 

Belt Makers, per day 

Blacksmiths, per day 

" Helpers, per day 

Bodt Builders, per day 

Boiler Makers, per day 

" " Flange Turners, per day 

Book-binders, per day 

" " Helpers, Boys and Girls, per week 

Book-keepers, per month 

" in Banks and Brokers' offices, per month 

Box Makers, per day . . . . •:. .-. . 

Brick-layers, per day ■ 

r ' ' Foremen, per day 

Butchers, per month and board 

Brewers, per month 

Broom Makers, per day. . 

Butter Makers, per month and found 

Brick Makers, per month and found . . . 

Boot Blacks, per month 

Boys, in offices and stores, per month 

Carpenters, House, per day ....'. 

" Foremen, per day. . .v 

" Ship, per day. . . , 

" " Foremen, per day 

Cabinet Makers, per day ... 

Carriage Makers, Body Makers, per day 

" " Wheelwrights, per day 

" " Trimmers, per day. ... . 

" " Painters, per day. ... ........... .. 

" " Stripers, per day 

Carvers, per day 

Caulkers, per day , 

Coopers, per day '.". . . . . . . 

Confectioners, per day. . . .*.' 

Coppersmiths, per day 

Coffin Makers, per day 

Clerks, per day '.*. . . . . . 

Charcoal Burners, per day 

Cheese Makers, per day 

Coachmen, per month and board 

Cooks, per month and board. 

" in private families, per month and board 

" in hotels, per month and board 

Cigar Makers, per day , 

Conductors, horse cars„ per day. 

" steam cars, per day 

Chamber-maids, in families, per month and board 

" in hotels, per month and board 

Dress-makers, in stores, per week. . . 

" in families, per day and board. 

Dairymen, per month and board 

Drivers, horse cars, per day 

" drays and trucks, per day 

" express, per day. 

iW hack, per day 



Special rates or 


Commission. 


Special rates. 


f 40 00 @ 


$60 00 


60 00 @ 


80 00 


2 50@ 


3 5o 


250® 


3 5° 


3 00 @ 


4 00 


20O@ 


2 50 


3 00 @ 


3 5o 


3 75@ 


4 00 


4 00 @ 


425 


3 00 @ 


5 00 


4 00 @ 


15 00 


80 00, @ 


200 00 


2 00 00 @ 


35° 00 


25°® 


3 00 


4 00 @ 


5 00 


6 00 @ 


8 00 


40 00 @ 


75 00 


50 00 @ 


75 00 


250® 


3 5o 


40 00 @ 


50 00 


40 00 @ 


bo 00 


3°oo@ 


45 00 


20 00 @ 


40 00 


3 5°@ 


4 5o 


4 5°@ 


6 00 


4 00 @ 


5 00 


5 00 @ 


750 


3oo@ 


4 00 


3oo@ 


400 


3 00 @ 


3 5o 


3 5°@ 


4 5° 


25°® 


4 00 


4 00 @ 


4 5° 


4 00 @ 


7 00 


4 00 @ 


5 00 


2 50 @ 


400 


300® 


4 00 


'35°© 


5 °o 


3oo@ 


450 


2 00 @ 


3 5° 


2 00 @ 


3 5o 


2 00 @ 


3 °° 


3S°°@ 


5000 


35 °°@ 


100 00 


30 00 @ 


3500 


40 00 @ 


100 00 


1 50 @ 


3 °° 


250 




3 00 @ 


5 00 


15 00 @ 


20 00 


20 00 @ 


25 00 


10 00 @ 


12 00 


1 50 @ 


3 00 


35 °° ® 


40 00 


2 50 




2 50 @ 


3 00 


2 00 @ 


3 00 


2 00 @ 


3 5® 



20 



ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 



Occupations and Terms. 



Wages. 



Door Makers, per day 

Druggists, per month and board - 

Dyers, per month and board 

Deck Hands, per month and board 

Editors, 1st class, per month 

" 2nd class, per month 

Engravers, per day ; 

Engineers, Mills, per day 

" Railroads, per day 

" Steamship, &c, per day 

Farm Laborers, per month and board — Winter 

" " per month and board — Summer 

Florists, per month and board 

Foundrymen, per day , , 

' ' Moulders, per day 

" Stove Mounters, per day 

" Brass, per day 

Gardeners, per month and board 

" short jobs, per day 

Gas-fitters, per day 

Gunsmiths, per day 

Gilders, per day 

Glaziers, per day ■ 

Harness Makers, per day 

Hatters, per day 

Hostlers, per month and board 

Jewelers, per day 

Laundry-men, per month and board 

" Women, per month and board 

Locksmiths, par day 

Lithographers, Draughtsman and Engravers, per day 

" Printers, per day 

Lumbermen, per month and board 

Machinists, per day 

Masons, per day 

V Foremen, per day 

Model or Pattern Makers, per day 

Millers, per day 

Millwrights, per day 

Miners, per day , 

Milliners, per day 

Nurses, per day 

Painters, House, per day 

" Ship, per day 

Paper-hangers, per day 

Plasterers, per day „ . 

Plumbers, per day 

Porters, per month and board 

Piano Makers, per day 

Printers, Job, per day 

" Foremen, per day , 

Policemen, per month 

Riggers, per day 

Saddlers, per day 

Sail Makers, per day 

Sailors, Long Voyages, per month 

" Coasters, per month 

Salesmen, per day 

Shipsmiths, per day 

Servants — General Housework, per month 

Shoemakers, per day ,...., 

Sawyers, per month. ,.„„,,. . „, , , , . . 



3 oo@ 


4 5° 


60 00 @ 


75 °o 


45 00 @ 


60 00 


40 00 @ 


5000 


200 00 @ 


250 00 


75 °°@ 


100 00 


4 5°@ 


6 00 


3 00 @ 


5 00 


3 00 @ 


4 00 


3°°@ 


5 00 


25 00 @ 


30 00 


40 00 @ 


5000 


3 r > °°@ 


5000 


3 00© 


4 5° 


4 50 @ 


5 00 


3 00 @ 


3 5° 


3 00 @ 


4 00 


45 °°@ 


60 00 


2 50 @ 


3 00 


3 00® 


4 5° 


300® 


5 00 


3 5°® 


S 00 


2 00 @ 


3 5o 


2 50 @ 


5 00 


300® 


400 


30 00 @ 


40 00 


3 5°@ 


400 


3°oo@ 


40 00 


3000® 


40 00 


300® 


400 


4 00® 


5 00 


4 00 @ 


4 5° 


3000® 


5000 


3 00 @ 


5 00 


4 00 @ 


5 00 


6 00 @ 


7 5° 


4 00 @ 


5 00 


300® 


4 oa 


3°°@ 


5 o« 


300® 


4 OS 


1 50 @ 


3 50 


1 00 @ 


2 09 


3 5o@ 


4 00 


3 oo@ 


400 


2.50® 


3 5° 


4 00 @ 


5 00 


4 oo@ 


5 go 


30oo@ 


5000 


400 @ 


450 


3 5°@ 


4 00 


4 5°@ 


S°o 


125 00 




400 @ 


5 °° 


3°°@ 


5 00 


300® 


4 00 


3000® 


3500 


40 00 @ 


45 °° 


250® 


4 50 


300® 


4 00 


15 00 @ 


20 00 


2 00 @ 


4 00 


40 00 @ 


7000 



CALIFORNIA AS A HOME FOR THE EMIGRANT. 



21 



Occupations and Terms. 



. Wages.) 



Shepherds, per month and board ;;.... 

Soap Makers, per month and board 

Stonecutters, per day 

Straw Workers, per day , 

Tailors, Pants, each 

" Vests, each 

" Coats, each t . . . 

Turners, per day f, » , 

Trunk Makers, per day 

Tinsmiths, per day , 

Teamsters, owning teams, per day , 

" per month >...... 

Teachers, (a full supply, male and female, from our own schools) per 
month _ , 

Upholsterers, per day 

Vineyard Men, per month and board 

Wagon-makers, per day 

Watchmen, per month 

Wood-choppers, per month , 

Waiters, per month and board -» 

Watch-makers, per day. . . . ._._ 

Young Men, of Energy, not afraid of work, and who are "'" 
not disposed to hang around the city, can 
almost always get something to make art; 
honest living in the country at from, per 
month \ 



25 00 @ 

35 00 @ 

4 00 @ 

1 50 @ 
3 00 @ 

2 00 @ 
6 00 @ 

3 5°@ 
2 50 @ 

2 5°@ 

2 50 @ 
3000®, 

45 00 @ 

3 5°@ 
30 00 @ 

3 00 @ 
5000 @ 
40 00 @ 
20 00 @ 

3°o@ 



35 00 

4500 

5 00 

300" 

5 00 

3 5° 
10 00 

4 00 
4 00 

3 5» 

4 00 
50 00 

200 00 

5 5° 
40 00 

4 00 

75 °a 

50 00 

40 00 

-ii45o 



i 25 00 @ 30 00 



The foregoing prices are in Gold Coin. 

It is much easier to get employment in rough or mechanical work than in 
clerking, keeping books, or school teaching; — and persons who have no money 
and no friends in California, able to assist them, and no special knowledge that 
will certainly command employment, should not come here in the expectation 
of an easy life. Men who expect to make their living by the shovel, the plow 
and the ax, are wanted. 

Teachers should disabuse their minds in reference to our educational affairs. 
We have the best Schools and Teachers in the Union. Our Teachers are 
mostly graduates of our High Schools and State Normal Schools, and we get a 
new supply from these sources every year. These are well paid; and as long as 
they keep up to the standard it would be folly in us to advise our friends in the 
East to come here expecting to get positions as Teachers; 

Ministers are well paid, getting from $1,200 to $8,000 jper annum.j;I We 
have a full supply at present, of first-class talent. 

Chinamen work willingly for 75 cents to $1.00 per day. We have a large 
supply, and they soon learn and perfect themselves in any department of busi- 
ness. They are a necessary evil at present, for the reason that most of the 
young men of our own State, and new-comers generally, will not work for 
small wages. As soon as this is remedied by an importation of Eastern and 
European laborers, willing to work for $1,00 to $1.50 per day, the employment 
of Chinese will gradually be diminished. 

Population and Products of California^ 

No accurate census of the population of California has ever been 'taken. 
The incorrect United States census of i860 reported the number of inhabitants 
as 365,493 ; the number reported now by the Surveyor-Qeneral is_ 693,609. 



22 ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 

There are about 170,000 voters, who represent 530,000 whites, and there are 
about 70,000 Chinamen, Indians and Negroes. 

The State produces about 26,000,000 bushels of wheat, 8,900,000 of bar- 
ley" 1,600,000 of oats, 39,000 of rye, 1,000,000 of maize, 13,000 of buckwheat, 
.82,000 of peas, 167,000 of peanuts, 150,000 of beans, 233,000 of castor beans, 
1,400,000 of potatoes, 75,000 of sweet potatoes, 91,000 of onions, 495,000 tons 
of hay, 570,000 Bos. of hops, 90,000 Bbs. of tobacco, 29,000 tons of beets, 5,000,- 
000 lbs. of butter, 3,000,000 Bbs. of cheese, 500,000 Bbs. of honey, 4,000,- 
000 gallons of wine, 300,000 gallons of brandy, 220,600,000 feet of sawn lum- 
ber and 100,000,000 shingles annually. 

It has 28,000,000 grape vines, 406,000 mulbery trees, 1,800,000 apple trees, 
1,000,000 peach, 300,000 pear, 200,000 plum, 140,000 cherry, 43> 000 necta- 
rine, 40,000 quince, 98,000 apricot, 54,000 fig, 10,000 lemon, 72,000 orange, 20,- 
000 olive, 14,500 prune, 162,000 almond, and 109,000 walnut trees; 10,000,000 
strawberry vines, 1,400,000 raspberry, and 172,000 gooseberry bushes, 209,000 
horses, 24,000 mules, 500,000 neat cattle, 2,200,000 sheep, 7,000 Cashmere 
goats, 412,000 hogs, 1,560,000 chickens, 150,000 turkeys, 25,000 geese, 80,000 
ducks, 32,000 beehives, sixty-two steam grist-mills, two hundred and five water- 
power grist-mills, two hundred and seven steam saw-mills, one hundred and 
sixty-one water-power saw-mills, three hundred and sixty quartz-mills, eight hun- 
dred and seventy-four mining ditches, with an aggregate length of 12,000 miles, 
and seven hundred and twenty irrigating ditches, which irrigate 70,000 acres. 

Manufactures 

The factories of California are few and small, relatively. High wages make 
it impossible to compete successfully with the cheaper labor of the Eastern 
States and Europe except in a few articles, most of which are bulky in propor- 
tion to cost or inflammable. 

We make blankets, flannels and cheap cloths, because we have an abundance 
of fine wool, on which by working it up here we can save freights to and from 
New York, three or four commissions, and ten months' time. Yet we export 
more than three-fourths of our wool, and import all our fine cloths, delaines and 
worsteds. On the same principle we tan hides and make coarse boots; but we 
export hides and sole leather and import fine boots, calf-skin and morocco. 
Furniture, tubs and coarse baskets are made here. Hemp rope is manufactured 
here because the material comes from Manila, and can be got here cheaper than 
in New York, and the freight is high as compared with the cost. Printing paper 
we make because we have rags to export. Straw paper is very bulky and cheap 
and is made here. Turpentine is inflammable and costly to freight, so we pro- 
duce it from the pitch of our forests. Resin is made because its production 
costs very little when turpentine is distilled. We have an abundance of broom- 
corn and on account of the luxuriant growth of the plant can make brooms 
cheaper and much better than those imported. The refuse of our slaughter- 
houses furnishes cheap material for coarse soap and glue, which we make in 
abundance. Coarse pottery and tin and copper-ware tan be made for less 



CALIFORNIA AS A HOME FOR THE EMIGRANT. 



2 3 



than the freight from New York. Common matches, acids, blasting powder, 
and giant powder or dynamite, are so dangerous to ship that the high freights 
protect production on our coast. Shot and lead pipe are made from lead 
obtained in Nevada and Arizona. The old wrought-iron, which was for- 
merly exported, is now sent to our rolling mill, which obtains its material 
cheaper than do similar establishments in the Eastern States. The salt obtained 
on our coast is ground, and the rice imported for our Chinamen is cleansed, in 
San Francisco mills. The sugar from the Hawaiian Islands is refined here for 
the consumption of the coast. The coarse bottles are made at home, but the 
fine ones are imported. The wire rope which is made to the order of the miners 
is twisted here. One cotton mill makes coarse muslin. A silk weaver has com- 
menced work in San Francisco, and he will probably thrive by confining his opera- 
tions to a small scale for several years. We make one hundred billiard tables 
and one hundred and fifty pianos annually. The tables cannot be transported 
entire, and it is cheaper to make them here than to import them. Planing mills 
and sash factories, of course, we have ; and the Chinese have gone extensively 
into the making of cigars. 

The facts which I have stated show that there is room for a great develop- 
ment of manufactures on the coast, and those persons who establish themselves 
here so as to take advantage of the turn of events as soon as it comes, will be in 
a fair way to make fortunes. The building up of extensive mechanical industry 
is inevitable. The great distance of California from the North Atlantic will 
make continued importation of many manufactured articles impossible, and the 
high tariff, which, on account of the immense debt, must be maintained many 
years, will be an additional protection. 

The manufactures of California are now nearly all in San Francisco, and are 
driven by steam; but there is an abundance of water-power along the base of the 
Sierra Nevada, and there are many unoccupied sites for steam factories better 
than any now in use. 

According to the United States Census Report of i860, California had, in that 
year, 3,505 manufacturing establishments, with a capital of $23,682,593, employ- 
ing 24,266 persons, consuming raw material worth $16,558,636, and producing 
manufactured articles worth $59,500,000. 

The additional value given to the raw material by the manufacturers was 
$42,912,000. Flour and lumber are the two largest items, and, together, make 
up more than $8, 500,000 of manufactured product, and malt and distilled liquors 
made $1,500,000 more. Since i860, there has been a great increase of manu- 
facturing industry, and many articles then imported are now made here, includ- 
ing tallow, boots, shoes, woodenware, candles, many varieties of furniture, gas 
meters, glass, hose, belts, glue, lasts, linseed oil, matches, saws, sashes and doors, 
tools, type, vinegar, and wire goods. Santa Cruz has a number of tanneries. 
Santa Cruz and Marin counties have each a powder mill and a paper mill; Oak- 
land has a cotton mill; Sacramento a beet-sugar mill; Sacramento, Marysville, 
Stockton, San Jose and Merced Falls, have each a woolen mill; every large town 
has its planing mill, foundry and brewery; and distilleries, and flour, saw and 



24 ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 

quartz mills, are scattered through the respective grape, grain, lumber and min- 
ing districts. But, with these exceptions, nearly all the manufacturing establish- 
ments are in San Francisco. The following is a list of those in the city, with the 
number of men employed in each branch, as reported in 1869 by the Assessor: 
Axle-Crease factory, 1 man employed; bellows factory, 1; billiard tables, 22 men 
employed; boxes, 69; brass foundries, 85; boots, 122; breweries, 153; wooden- 
ware, 66; candles, n; acid, 15; cigars, 1,232; cordage, 50; flour, 134; furniture, 
138; gas meter, 4; glass blowing, 86; glass cutting, 6; gold and silver refining, 5; 
hats and caps, 26; hose and belts, 17; foundries and boiler shops, 1,093; wm ~ 
dows, 84; glue, 20; lasts, 4; lead pipe and shot, 18; linseed oil, 8; malt, 18; 
matches, 43; mirror silvering, 5; piano fortes, 19; fireworks, 4; rolling mill, 58; 
salt grinding, 35; saw making, 35; sash and doors, 261; saw and planing mills, 
380; soap, 54; staves, 22; marble sawing, 28; sugar refineries, 264; tanneries, 
122; tools, 5; trunks, 30; type, 35; tubs, 20; vinegar, 6; wine 12; woolen mills, 
750; total men employed, 5,786. 

The values of the articles manufactured are reported thus in a few branches: 
Bellows, $10,000; boxes, $200,000; brass work, $143,000; boots, $160,000; fur- 
niture, $170,000; gas meters, $4,000; glass cutting, $8,500; lasts, $7,000; mirrors, 
$20,000; fireworks, $7,000; saws, $70,000; sashes and doors, $773,000; tools, 
$5,500; trunks, $37,000; type, $28,000; wire, $25,000. 

Among the quantities of certain articles manufactured, the following are re- 
ported : Billiard tables, 97; malt liquors, 3,600,000 gallons; candles, 15,000 
boxes; cigars, 38,000,000; cordage, 1,500 tons; flour, 529,000 barrels; gold and 
silver, refined, 1,500,000 ounces; foundries and boiler shops, 11,600 tons iron; 
iron doors, 1,100 tons iron; lead pipe and shot, 1,100 tons; linseed oil, 25,000 
gallons; matches, 95,000 gross; pianos, 152; salt, 7,300 tons ground; lumber, 
24,000,000 feet sawn; soap, 4,000,000 pounds; sugar, refined, 20,000,000 pounds; 
leather, 16,000 hides; vinegar, 86,000 gallons. 

Climate. 

One of the most important elements of the wealth of California is its mag- 
nificent climate, which along the coast south of Cape Mendocino, may be 
described as an eternal spring. In San Francisco the roses bloom throughout 
the year in the open air; and the olive, fig, orange and a multitude of other semi- 
tropical fruit trees, thrive and bear fruit one hundred miles further north. The 
fecundity of some orange trees at Sacramento, which bore abundantly in Novem- 
ber, 1869, has induced several persons to plant out a number of trees. It is a 
very rare event to see ice in San Francisco, and it does not form a quarter of an 
inch thick once in five years. The ground has not been white with snow in ten 
years, and the snow never lay on the ground twenty-four hours without melting; 
nor does the thermometer ever remain for twenty-four continuous hours below 
the freezing point. The same reasons that induce hundreds of thousands of the 
natives of Northern Europe to visit the shores of the Mediterranean every year, 
will drive the people of the colder portions of the North American Continent to 
resort to California. In clearness of sky and mildness, and equality of temper- 



CALIFORNIA AS A HOME FOR THE EMIGRANT. 



25 



ature, our coast surpasses Italy and it will therefore be more attractive. The long 
shore of Southern Europe, from the Bosphorus to Gibralter, has a mild climate, 
so that the pleasure seekers in Europe can enjoy it in any one of half a dozen 
kingdoms; but here the area of comfort is more restricted and the profit in that 
area must be greater. California occupies for America and Eastern Asia the 
same place that the Mediterranean coast does for Europe. 

The Pacific shore of North America is washed by a warm current that runs 
northeastward from the Phillippine Islands; and so Washington, Oregon and 
California, near the coast, have much milder climates than the States in the same 
latitude on the eastern side of the Continent. California has many climates. The 
coast is divided into three districts — by Cape Mendocino, in Lat. 40 and Point 
Concepcion in Lat. 34. 

North of Cape Mendocino, the rains occur frequently in the late spring and 
summer; the amount of rainfall is fifty per cent, greater than at San Francisco; the 
fogs are much heavier and longer in duration; the winds are stronger and the 
temperature generally is colder. 

South of Point Concepcion there are no steady breezes and fog but seldom;, 
the rainfall is thirty per cent, less than at San Francisco, and the summers are 
often oppressively hot, even very near the ocean. 

The middle coast has an average annual temperature of fifty-four degrees,., 
January averaging forty-nine degrees and July fifty-seven degrees, a difference 
of only eight degrees. The weather is uncomfortably cold at forty-five degrees and 
uncomfortably warm at seventy-five degrees, and never did the average of any 
week in San Francisco reach either figure, although sometimes the thermometer 
has fallen to thirty-two degrees and risen to eighty degrees. Ice and snow are 
never seen in the streets. On the twenty-ninth of December, 1856, snow cov- 
ered the hills about the city for a few hours in the morning, but there was not 
enough even for snow-balling. There are not more than a dozen warm days in 
a summer; never a warm night. During July and August, strong northwest 
trade-winds blow regularly along the coast, and they bear the coolness of the 
ocean over the land. In the evening and morning they cause heavy fogs, which 
disappear about ten a.m. and eleven p.m. These fogs and winds are often made 
the subjects of unfavorable comment by strangers, but they give to San Francisco 
the most equable climate in the temperate zone. New York is eighteen degrees, 
London twelve degrees and Naples three degrees, colder in January; and New 
York fifteen degrees, London five degrees ana Naples nineteen degrees, warmer 
in July. Better wind and fog than freezing cold and torrid heat. No climate 
can be more favorable to labor and life in the open air than that of San Fran- 
cisco. The constant coolness invites activity and even requires it as a condition 
of comfort. 

As we leave the ocean and go inland, the influence of the trade-winds de- 
creases and the heat of summer and cold of winter increase. The sea-breezes 
make the winters warmer, as well as the summers cooler. At Sonoma, twenty 
miles from the ocean and at Sacramento, ninety miles from the ocean, January is 
four degrees colder and July is at the former place nine, and in the latter sixteen 



26 ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 

degrees warmer than in San Francisco. The ocean breezes seem to lose their 
influence over the winter at twenty miles from the ocean, but their influence 
over the summer weather extends much further inland. Sacramento is near the 
central windgap of the Golden Gate, whence the breezes blow into the interior 
basin; and the temperature of July is seventeen degrees less there than at Fort 
Miller and nine degrees less than at Fort Reading, which two points are near the 
southern and northern extremites of the basin, respectively. 

In the Sierra Nevada, the element of altitude comes in to affect the climate 
and especially to prolong and intensify the winters. The higher portions of the 
Sierra rise to the limits of perpetual snow, and the climate there is of course 
arctic in its severity, the thermometer falling below the freezing point every night 
in the year. The mining camps are mostly situated in deep ravines, where the 
wind has little opportunity to blow, and the heat of summer in midday is very 
oppressive, even at an elevation of five or six thousand feet, but the nights are 
always cool. At Grass Valley, in Lat. 39 deg., two thousand five hundred feet 
above the sea, the average of January is twenty-seven degrees, and of July sixty- 
three degrees. At Fort Jones, about the same altitude, in Lat. 4 1 deg., the tem- 
perature of January and July are about the same. Between the mountains and 
the valleys, the coast and the interior, the north and the south, we have every 
variety of climate save the tropical. Thunder-storms are almost unknown on the 
coast, and are not frequent in the Sierra Nevada, 

Rain seldom comes between May and October, which period is called the 
dry season, the remaining months being the rainy season. The amount of rain 
however, that falls in a year in the central and southern valleys of the State, is 
considerably less than in the Eastern States. At San Francisco, for instance, the 
average rainfall is twenty-two inches, while in New York it is forty-three, in St. 
Louis forty-one and in New Orleans fifty. As a general rule the amount of rain 
increases in California with altitude and latitude. Thus, at Fort Yuma the average 
rainfall is four inches; at San Diego, ten; at Stockton, fifteen; at Sacramento, 
twenty; at Fort Reading, twenty-nine; at Sonora, thirty-five; at Grass Valley, 
forty, and at Fort Humboldt, thirty-four. 

General Features of Californian Farming. 

The farming of California is unlike that of the Eastern States and Europe. 
The peculiarities of climate and business exercise a great influence on the agri- 
culture. Little maize is cultivated; no barns are used; little shelter is provided 
for domestic animals, and little cultivated food is prepared for them; there is no 
customary rotation of crops; plowing is not possible till after the rains of winter 
have softened the earth; the amount of land seeded depends, to a great extent, 
on the earliness of the rains. A considerable share of the grain is raised in 
volunteer crops. The yield of grain is larger to the acre; and gang-plows are 
used to a considerable extent. Irrigation is common. Fruit trees grow more 
rapidly, and bear earlier than in the Atlantic States. Wine, silk, olives, prunes 
and nuts, promise to occupy a very prominent place among our productions. 



CALIFORNIA. AS A HOME FOR THE EMIGRANT. 



Wheat. 



2 7 



Wheat is cultivated more extensively than any other grain, and about one- 
fourth of the cultivated land is devoted to it. In 1869, according to the report 
of the Surveyor-General, one million two hundred and eighty-six thousand one 
hundred and thirty-three acres of land in California was sown in wheat. p The 
average yield in favorable seasons is thirty bushels per acre. In many instances, 
sixty and seventy bushels have been grown to the acre, and in several cases, 
eighty bushels. The berry is large, plump, hard, dry, white and strong, with 
gluten. The Californian wheat is so hard that some mills abroad cannot grind 
it, not being prepared for it. It is so dry that it can be stored in bulk in large 
quantities and for long periods, without danger of sweating or molding. It can 
be safely shipped through the tropics, whereas wheat grown in moist climates, or 
flour made from it, would spoil. In whiteness, the Californian wheat is superior 
to that of Europe. The " strength " of wheat consists in a large proportion of 
gluten, which makes a tough dough and a loaf with a large proportion of moisture 
and small and uniform air-bubbles, so that the bread will weigh more in propor- 
tion to the flour used. In "strength," the Californian wheat is reputed to be the 
best in the world, though there is considerable difference in the growth of differ- 
ent districts in that respect. The districts which produce the strongest wheat are 
Santa Clara and the southern parts of San Mateo and Alameda Counties, and the 
valleys of Diablo, San Ramon, Amador and Suisun. The valleys of Santa Rosa, 
Pajaro, Salinas, Sonoma and Petaluma, are second rate; and the Sacramento, 
San Joaquin and Napa valleys, western San Mateo and northwestern Alameda, 
are third rate; but all of them are superior to the average wheat of the Atlantic 
States. 

The general estimate among farmers is that wheat will not pay at less than one 
dollar and sixty cents per one hundred pounds; but no general rule can be laid 
down, for the profit depends as much on the quantity as on the price. There is 
also a great difference in the cost of putting in wheat, some soils being much 
more difficult to manage. As a general rule, the cost of plowing and sowing 
may be put down at three dollars per acre; reaping and binding, two dollars; 
threshing, three dollars; sacks, three dollars, and rent or interest, five dollars — 
a total of sixteen dollars per acre. This is on the plan of letting the work out 
by the job; a good farmer who employs the best hands and superintends his own 
work can have it done cheaper. Twenty bushels or twelve hundred pounds to 
the acre, at one dollar and twenty-five cents per sack, would barely pay the six- 
teen dollars. On the smaller farms, the grain is put in precisely as it is in the 
Eastern States and it is harvested in the same manner, except that it is frequently 
left standing for weeks after it is ripe, as there is no fear of rain; and after being 
cut it is left in the shock, usually until the thresher comes; and after threshing 
it is left on the field, piled up in sacks, for weeks more, until the teamsters are 
readv to haul it away. 

Sometimes the volunteer crops are better than the sown. This is especially the 
case in those districts where the soil is sandy or the amount of rain small. 



28 &* 1 ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 

In the sandy plains, on large farms, it is common to use gang-plows six 
abreast, drawn by twelve horses under charge of one driver. A sower is affixed 
to the plow. Nine acres is considered a good day's work. The grain is har- 
vested by a header, which cuts a swath from fifteen to twenty-two feet wide, and 
cutting from forty to sixty acres per day, and throws the grain into attendant 
wagons, which carry it directly to a thresher, which sacks it ready for market. 
The gang-plows with sower attached, cost seventy-five dollars; the header costs 
four hundred and twenty- five dollars; the thresher and portable steam engine, two 
thousand dollars. 

Barley is cultivated in the same manner as wheat, and produces a larger crop, 
but usually is worth less per pound in the market. Four hundred and sixty- 
eight thousand and seventy-six acres were sown with barley in 1869, according 
to the report of the Surveyor-General. Seventy-nine thousand and sixty-four 
acres of land were also sown with oats, of which the yield was stated at two 
million five hundred and sixty-eight thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine 
bushels. 

The Grape, 

The cultivation of the grape is one of the leading branches of Californian 
agriculture. The State has about twenty-five million vines in vineyard and two- 
thirds of them in full bearing. The amount of wine made annually is not 
reported with precision, but it is probably about four million gallons. The pro- 
duction of brandy amounts to about three hundred thousand gallons; and large 
quantities of grapes are eaten fresh. Many of the vines are very profitable, pay- 
ing as much as five hundred dollars net per acre; and some even as much as two 
thousand dollars. The Flame Tokay vines bear occasionally twelve thousand 
pounds to the acre, and the grapes sell at wholesale for twenty cents per pound, 
making the gross yield per acre twenty-four hundred dollars, and the expenses 
are less than two hundred dollars. The White Tokay, the Muscat of Alexandria, 
the Black Malvoisie, the Golden Chasselas, the Rose of Peru, the Black Ham- 
burg and the White Hamburg, all in places well adapted to them, and near San 
Francisco, have yielded more than two hundred dollars net per acre. The cheap- 
est grapes are the Mission, and they have paid from fifty to one hundred dollars 
net per acre. Persons who have Muscat of Frontignan can probably sell the crop 
for several years at five hundred dollars per acre. The prospects of the vine- 
growing interest are brilliant and large areas are set out in grapes every year. 

California has great advantages for wine growing. The vines bear very 
abundantly. The average crop is eight thousand pounds to the acre, while in 
France it is three thousand, and in Ohio, five thousand. This difference is an 
item of vast importance. The yield is much more regular in this State than in 
France or the Mississippi Valley, where frosts in the spring, hail in the summer, 
and rain in the fall, often destroy the crop. 

In some parts of Germany the winters are so cold that the vines must be cut 
off near the ground every fall and covered with manure — an expensive labor. 

The land suitable for vineyards in Europe costs several hundred dollars pei 
acre, and in California it can be had for comparatively nothing. 



CALIFORNIA AS A HOME FOR THE EMIGRANT. 29 

The warmth of our winters saves the expense of fires during the period of 
fermentation. 

There are, on the other hand, some disadvantages. Many of our wine 
growers are inexperienced, and do not know how to cultivate their vines, or 
make their wines in the best manner. Labor, casks, bottles, and transportation 
to the market, are dear. The interest of money is high and it is expensive to 
keep wine for years. The wine merchants have not yet established themselves 
firmly, nor can they get large supplies of wine of uniform quality; and unifor- 
mity is necessary to stability of market. These evils, however, will all be over- 
come, while the advantages will continue to operate in our favor. 

The average crop of grapes on vines more than seven years old, is about 
eight thousand pounds per acre, and about thirteen pounds of grapes go to a gallon 
of wine, making six hundred gallons per acre. The lowest price of wine when 
six months old, well made, is twenty-five cents per gallon, leaving one hundred 
and fifty dollars per acre gross, and at least fifty dollars net. But the average 
prices in November, 1869, were for Los Angeles, of 1869, thirty cents; Ana- 
heim, of 1869, thirty-five cents; Sacramento, of 1869, forty cents; White Sono- 
ma, of 1868, forty cents; Red Sonoma, of 1868, forty-five cents; White Sonoma, 
of 1867, fifty cents ; Red Sonoma, of 1867 ; fifty-five cents. All those are wines 
made of Mission grapes, and are the cheapest varieties. Sonoma Zinfindel, sold, 
of 1868, for seventy-five cents ; mixed foreign, of 1868, sixty to seventy-five 
cents; Zinfindel, of 1866, ninety cents; Zinfindel, of 1867, eighty-five cents; 
Alexandrian Muscat, of 1869, one dollar; and of 1867, one dollar and twenty- 
five cents ; Riessling, of 1868, eighty cents, and Frontignan Muscat, of 1868, one 
dollar. The best wines cannot be got at retail for less than three dollars per 
gallon. 

It is the unanimous opinion of French and German wine growers now here, 
that California will in time make as good wine as any part of Europe. We pro- 
duce excellent wines, similar to Port, Burgundy, Claret, Hock and Champagne, 
and as our wine-makers learn more of their business, the quality of their pro- 
duction is steadily improving. 

Apples, Etc. 
The apple, pear, peach, plum and cherry, all thrive and bear abundantly in 
California. The apples are larger than in the Atlantic States, but those grown 
near the sea do not keep so well and are not so juicy. The varieties eaten in 
the winter in New York will not keep later than fall here. Those grown in the 
Sierra Nevada, where the winters are cold, will keep as well in New England. 
The pears are much better than those of the Atlantic States. There are no 
worms in our fruits. The curculio is unknown. Cherry trees pay well, some 
having yielded one thousand dollars net per acre, in the spring of 1869. 

The Olive. 
The olive will be profitable in California. Our climate is very favorable to 
the tree, and the diseases which have injured European olive orchards have 
never appeared here. The tree is hardy and the crop sure ; at least there has 



3° 



ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 



never been a failure in the State. The trees are planted twenty-five or thirty 
feet apart, fifty or sixty in an acre, and they yield, in full bearing, from thirty to 
sixty gallons of oil per tree — worth, at present prices, in the orchard fifty cents 
per gallon ; so that an acre of fifty trees, producing thirty gallons each, would 
pay three hundred and seventy-five dollars. Strike off fifty per cent, allowance 
for all possible over-estimates and depreciations, and we have a yield of one hun- 
dred and eighty-seven dollars, which would leave at least one hundred dollars 
net per acre. Imported oil, known to be genuine, is retailed at three dollars 
per gallon. The olive does not come into bearing until ten years after planting, 
and this long delay has been the only cause that the cultivation has not been 
undertaken on an extensive scale. In fifteen or twenty years, olive oil will be 
one of the staple productions of the State. A little oil is made now, but not 
enough for home consumption. The making the oil is comparatively simple, 
requiring nothing save pressing and straining ; but the art of preserving the fruit 
is .mot so easy, and few persons in the State understand it. The Californian 
olives are not quite so large as those imported ; and we rely almost exclusively 
on importation for our table olives. 

The Orange, Lemon and Lime. 

The orange tree lives in the open air in all the low interior valleys south of 
Lat. 39 deg. but it is exposed to occasional injury by frost, and is not a profitable 
orchard tree north of Santa Barbara. Healthy trees in full bearing produce a 
thousand oranges or more in a season, and the value in the market is from two 
dollars to five dollars per hundred. The Los Angeles crop usually ripens from 
December to May, at a time when there are very few oranges from the Hawaiian 
or Society Islands in the market. As fifty trees stand on an acre, a fine income 
may be derived from a small orchard. The orange tree is not very easy to raise. 
Many die in transplanting, and in the nursery they are frequently ruined by the 
gophers, which are veiy fond of the roots. In the orchard, as well as in the 
nursery, they are exposed to the attacks of a bug, the orange aphis, which injures 
the trees so that they are barren, and some die. No method of killing the 
aphis has been discovered, but after a time the bug disappears without any known 
cause. The tree does not come into bearing until it is ten years old, and it 
will not thrive in the soil of Los Angeles without irrigation. There are eleven 
thousand orange trees in orchard in the State, and three hundred thousand in 
nursery, with a probability that many of the nursery plants will be set out in 
orchard within a year or two. Most of the large orchards are at Los Angeles. 

The lemon tree is very similar in character to the orange. There are six 
thousand lemon trees in the State, including one thousand eight hundred in Los 
Angeles County, and four hundred in Santa Barbara. 

The lime is also cultivated at Los Angeles, where four hundred trees are in 
bearing. 

The fig tree thrives and bears abundantly in all the valleys near the level of 
the sea not visited by the ocean fogs. 



CALIFORNIA AS A HOME FOR THE EMIGRANT. -31 

Neat Cattle. 

The neat cattle of Spanish stock are small and half wild in their nature. 
They yield very little milk, do not fatten well, and when fat do not yield juicy 
beef. They are, therefore, not suitable either for dairy purposes or stall-feeding. 
The dairy cows and most of the beef cattle in the northern part of the State are 
of American stock. 

The importation of fine Devon, Durham and Ayrshire, stock, has not yet led 
to such pecuniary benefits as were hoped, and many intelligent farmers seem to 
be entirely satisfied to have American cattle, either for beef or for the dairy. 
The fine-blood cattle do not thrive on the wild grasses, and cultivated food is 
too expensive for general use. Whatever the reason may be, there is a general 
conviction among the owners of cattle ranches that the importation of pure- 
blood cattle fiom England does not pay. The Durham blood would, no doubt, 
thrive much better in Oregon and Washington, where the climate and vegetation 
resemble those of England. The method of keeping the cattle varies much in 
different parts of the State. In the densely-settled districts, the animals are tame 
and many of the cows are of fine blood and are kept for dairy purposes. Except 
that they have no shelter and are seldom fed by hand, they are kept nearly like 
cattle in the Eastern States. But in the San Joaquin Valley and on the Southern 
Coast, the herds run almost wild, and they are never touched, as a rule, except 
when they are branded or slaughtered. The law of California provides that the 
ownership of horses and cows shall be proved by the brand; and every spring 
and fall, in the southern cattle ranches, the herds are driven up, the calves and 
colts are lassoed, thrown down and branded on the hip with the iron of the 
owner. When the mark is well burned in, the victim is let loose, with no pleas- 
ant impression of human kindness. The herdsman or vaquero is not expected 
to recognize every one of a thousand head of cattle under his charge; but tie 
knows the brand and by that proves property. When the animal is sold it is 
lassoed again and branded on the shoulder, and this mark is called the venta or 
sale. It is lassoed once more to be slaughtered, that is if killed on the ranch; 
if driven off to a town, it may be shot in a corral. 

The dairy business is very profitable, when well managed, in California; but 
the number of those who manage it well is small. Good butter varies in price 
from twenty-five cents to one dollar per pound, the average being over fifty cents, 
and cheese of fine quality twenty cents. With such prices good dairymen can 
make fortunes in a few years. The main difficulty has been the lack of succu- 
lent food in the summer, fall and early winter; but the cultivation of root crops for 
the cows has been commenced and it will steadily increase. The general esti- 
mate is that a cow should produce a pound of butter per day for two-thirds of 
the year; and one man (for there are no dairymaids in the country) takes charge 
of twenty cows. The rancho of the Shafter Brothers, in Marin County, seventy- 
five thousand acres, is occupied entirely for dairy purposes, and is probably the 
largest dairy estate in the world. The methods of making butter and cheese 
are the same here as elsewhere. 



3 2 



ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 



There are five hundred thousand neat cattle in the State, and we make four 
million four hundred thousand pounds of cheese and five million five hundred 
thousand pounds of butter annually. 

Horses. 

Most of the horses of California are still of Mexican stock, and are admirably 
adapted to wild pasture and the saddle. They are healthy and hardy; they keep 
fat on scanty feed; they can travel long distances, even a hundred miles in a 
day, without injury; and after having been broken, they are docile and kind. 
For general service in the southern part of the State, they are decidedly superior 
to American or English horses. They are usually allowed to run wild until 
they are four years old, and they are then lassoed and broken. On some of the 
ranchos, the old custom of keeping the mares exclusively for breeding is still 
observed, and only the geldings are used for the saddle or harness. The Mexican 
horse is better than any other for the herdsman or vaquero; but is not swift 
enough for racing, and is not large enough for teaming. Near the middle of 
the State most of the horses are of American stock. The cross of the Clydesdale 
with the California stock makes a large horse, just suited for heavy work; but for 
the buggy and parade, the Morgan and thoroughbred are in demand. There are 
now several hundred thoroughbreds in the State, some of them fine enough to 
be classed among the best of their kind. There are also large numbers of Amer- 
ican horses, of mixed blood, but of fine quality, excellent for general farm work. 
Most of the California horses are never fed with cultivated food or kept in 
stables, and many of the American horses, except when engaged in hard work, 
are treated in the same manner. 

There are one hundred and ninety thousand horses and twenty-four thousand 
mules in the State. 

Sheep. 

In 1853, the breeding of sheep for their wool was first undertaken in Cali- 
fornia, by W. W. Hollister, who commenced in poverty and made a fortune at 
the business, and his success was followed by that of a number of others. Now, 
the breeding of sheep is an important part of the agricultural industry of the 
State. The production of wool in 1869 was eighteen million pounds; the ave- 
rage quality is about half merino, and the average net yield to the farmer about 
eighteen cents per pound. The quality of the wool is improving every year, as 
the blood of the herds is brought nearer the pure merino. The Spanish sheep 
furnished the original stock, but the Spanish blood is rapidly decreasing. 

Our climate is peculiarly favorable to sheep. They need neither shelter nor 
cultivated food — at least most of them never receive either. The weight of the 
animal is ten per cent., that of the fleece twenty per cent., and the increase almost 
one hundred per cent, greater here than in the Eastern States. Besides, the 
sheep generally live longer. There is no disease among our herds, save the scab, 
and that is never fatal. If we add together the exemption from disease, the more 
rapid increase, the greater weight of fleece and mutton, the saving in sheds and 



CALIFORNIA AS A HOME FOR THE EMIGRANT. 3$ 

Cultivated food, and the difference in cost of pasture lands, there is a large total 
in favor of the Californian wool-grower. 

One shepherd can take charge of two thousand one hundred sheep, and the 
common wages are thirty-five dollars per month, with board, which costs ten 
dollars per month, making five hundred and forty dollars per year. About three 
thousand acres of land are required for pasturage, and the interest on the cost is 
three hundred dollars, making a total of eight hundred and forty dollars, or 
twenty-five cents per head, for the ordinary annual expenses. It is necessary to 
incur other expenses at lambing and shearing times, and these cannot be calcu- 
lated so precisely, but they do not exceed ten cents per sheep, so that the expense 
per head is thirty-five cents or less. The yield of wool averages six and a half 
pounds per year, and the prices, if the quality is good, are from eighteen to 
twenty-five cents. A gentleman of much experience in the sheep business sold 
three thousand ewes for four dollars each, or twelve thousand dollars, and after 
the sale calculated the profit that the purchaser would make in two years, thus : 

First year's wool $7,200 

Second year's wool of three thousand lambs 3»Soo 

Second year's wool of three thousand ewes 7,200 

Market value of one thousand five hundred wethers 4>50O 

Market value of three thousand old ewes 12, OOO 

Market value of one thousand five hundred young ewes 4)5°° 

Total $38,900 

Deduct expenses of three thousand sheep at thirty -five cents for first year. . . $1,050 

Six thousand sheep for second year 2, 100 

Cost of three thousand ewes 12,000 

I5>I5° 

Net profit . . . . ~ $23,750 



That may seem very extravagant, but there are men in the State who have 
been making money at that ratio in sheep for a long period, with the exception 
cf the seasons of drought. One sheep-owner began the business in debt, in 
1853, and now he owns forty thousand head of sheep, and seventy thousand or 
eighty thousand acres of land — all made with sheep. 

The yearling wethers usually weigh fifty pounds ; the two year-olds from 
sixty to sixty-five ; the three-year olds from sixty-five to eighty, and the four- 
year olds from seventy-five to one hundred. The expenses of shearing are seven 
cents per head. A cross of the Spanish- Vermont merino with the French 
merino is preferred by the wool-growers generally. The best Spanish- Vermont 
bucks can be obtained for two hundred dollars or three hundred and fifty dol- 
lars each, and the ewes could probably be got for three hundred dollars, though 
there are none now for sale here. There is one herd of Southdowns in Los 
Angeles County, but they yield less wool, and it commands a smaller price than 
the merino. There are several herds of Cotswolds in the State, and they are 
growing in favor. 

The exportation of wool began in 1855, with three hundred and sixty 



34 



ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 



thousand pounds ; the next year it was six hundred thousand ; the next one mil- 
lion one hundred thousand pounds ; and it has since increased rapidly. The 
production for 1869 w ih" probably be nearly eighteen million pounds. 

The Angora Goat. 
The Angora or Cashmere goat has been introduced in California, and k 
multiplies rapidly, and is very healthy, and as the wool is finer, more lustrous 
and longer than that of the sheep, and commands twice as much per pound in 
the market, and the fleece is about as heavy, hopes are entertained that it will 
contribute much to the wealth of the State. It is very similar in size, form and 
general appearance, to the common goat, save that the color is white, and the 
hair, instead of being coarse and short, is fine and from four to eight inches long* 
The weight of the fleece, when clean, varies from two to five pounds. The goat 
is healthier than the sheep, able to live on poorer food, more prolific, less stupid, 
more courageous and less likely to be injured by struggling when it must be 
approached or handled. These are qualities of much importance. The goat 
often has twins, and in favorable seasons bears twice a year, so that the increase 
is more rapid than that of the sheep, an expectation of one hundred and twenty 
per cent, increase annually on the number of ewes being not unreasonable iJ 
they are properly cared for. 

The Silkworm. 

The silkworm is a very delicate animal, and it is subject in Europe to many 
diseases, most of them directly traceable to climatic influences, from which this 
State is exempt. Climate is a matter of vast importance to the breeder of the 
silkworm, and nowhere is it so favorable as here. The worms are exceedingly 
healthy and prolific, the cocoons large, the fiber strong and fine, the mulberry 
luxuriant in growth and hardy. The colds of forty-five degrees, the heats of one 
hundred degrees, the thunder-storms and the summer rains, which frequently 
prove fatal in France and Italy, are almost unknown in our coast valleys. In 
Europe, even when there is no rain, there are many damp, cloudy days, which 
prevent the evaporation of the dew, and if there is any moisture on the leaves 
the worms sicken and die. The presence of the dew generally delays the feed- 
ing until late in the morning, whereas it would be far better if the feeding could 
be done early in the morning. It is customary in Europe to feed three or four 
times a day, with leaves plucked off separately ; but in California they can be fed 
twice or even once with sprouts, each cut with a number of leaves on it. They 
increase at the rate of a hundred-fold at each generation. The female generally 
lays from two hundred to three hundred eggs, and it may be assumed that two 
hundred worms will survive and make cocoons ; and as the females are about 
half, the total number may be multiplied by one hundred to represent the 
increase. In the fall of 1868, it was estimated that there were one million live 
cocoons in the State, and these produced butter flies which laid one hundred mil- 
lion eggs. The season of 1869, however, was disastrous for the silk-growet3 
Man) of them were ignorant of the proper method of taking care of their eggs 



CALIFORNIA AS A HOME FOR THE EMIGRANT. o5 

and put them into ice-boxes and the worms died. It is supposed that the crop 
of 1870 will do much better. 

The Californian silk-growers have had so little experience that there is great 
diversity of opinion among them in regard to the expense of breeding the worms, 
the number that may be bred, and the area that will be required for feeding a 
given number. A great number of mulberry trees have been planted in nursery 
in this State, but very few in plantation or orchard, and for that reason the silk 
business is arrested, for without the mulberry plantation there can be no progress 
worthy of note. The trees should be planted not less than four feet, and per- 
haps six feet, apart ; and when they are three or four years old, they will furnish 
leaves from an acre to feed half a million worms at a time, and if there are 
three generations in a year then each acre should feed a million and a half at 
that time. One active man ought to take charge of fifty thousand worms ; Mr. 
Prevost thought he should attend to one hundred thousand. A plantation once 
made will last fifty or a hundred years, perhaps longer. The soil is never 
exhausted, nor does the silk deteriorate in quality with time. The plantation 
should have a moist, rich, sandy loam ; and it requires occasional plowing and 
hoeing to keep the earth loose and clean. 

There are forty-two thousand eggs in an ounce, which is now worth four dol- 
lars, with a probability of a steady demand at that price for years to come. The 
eggs of a million worms would be worth twenty-five thousand dollars, and the 
cocoons left by the worms would be worth six hundred dollars ; or if the cocoons 
were not hatched, they would be worth two thousand six hundred dollars. In 
three thousand cocoons there is a pound of silk net, and the unhatched cocoons 
are worth eight dollars per pound of silk ; the hatched cocoons, having been 
eaten through at one end, are worth two dollars a pound. A square foot of 
room must be given on a table for a hundred worms ; and there may be tiers of 
tables ; twenty thousand may be bred in a room twelve feet long and nine wide, 
with height enough for three tables. 

Only the Japanese worms can be depended upon to produce three genera- 
tions in a year. 

California expends over two millions of dollars annually for imported silks, 
all of which and much more can in the course of a few years be raised and 
manufactured herewith a profit. The United States imports an average of thirty 
million of dollars worth of silk annually on which the duty is over sixteen mil- 
lions of dollars, a little more than fifty per cent, of its invoiced price. The stock 
has been taken for the establishment of a silk factory in San Francisco, the build- 
ing erected, the machinery procured, and it will soon be in operation. 

Expenses of Living and Traveling. 

Flour and potatoes, kitchen vegetables generally and fine fruits, are cheaper 
in California than in New York. Sugar, tea, coffee and rice, are about the same 
price ; butcher's meat is cheaper. 

The price of boarding without lodging, at the best hotels in San Francisco, 
is twelve dollars per week ; the ordinary charge at good hotels is two dollars and 
fifty cents and three dollars per day. The charge for board and lodging in San 



3« 



ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 



Francisco for poor people, is from twenty to forty dollars per month, and for 
those who have means to live comfortably, from forty to seventy-five dollars. 
Houses well furnished, with six or eight rooms, bring from thirty to forty dollars 
per month rent on retired streets, and from forty to eighty dollars on fashionable 
streets. In the smaller towns the rents are from twenty to fifty per cent. less. 
The cost of living is greater in California than in any other country, but it is not 
so great relatively as the rates of wages and the general profits of business. 

The following table shows the distances, time and fares, first and second 
class, and modes of conveyance from San Francisco to various points. The 
asterisk means currency ; other prices gold : 



Localities. 



New York . . 

Chicago 

Omaha 

Ogden 

Salt Lake . . . 
White Pine.. 
Virginia City 
Sacramento . 



$139 50* 

118 00* 

100 CO* 

50 CO 

60 00 

60 00 

21 25 

4 00 



$65 00* 
60 30* 
50 00* 
40 00 



3,3oo 

2,290 

1,850 

742 

770 

7H 

295 

82 



6 days 

5 days 

4 days 

2 days 

2 days 



V2 



days 



27 h'rs 
4 h'rs 



Railroad. 
Railroad. 
Railroad. 
Railroad. 
Railroad. 
R.R. and Stage. 
R.R. and Stage. 
Vallejo Route. 



Steamship Lines. — Inman, Liverpool to New York: steerage $3 z, currency. Guion, Liv- 
erpool to New York: first class $75, coin; steerage $32, currency. White Star, Liverpool to 
New York: first class $105, coin; steerage $32, currency. American Line, Liverpool to New 
York: first class $75, currency; $31, currency. 

Railroad. — New York to San Francisco: first class $139.50, currency, emigrant $60, 
currency. 

In some cases, the prices will be reduced within a year, by competition, and 
the distance will be shortened by opening new routes. 

Emigrants are carried in freight trains from New York to San Francisco for 
($60) sixty dollars, and from Omaha for ($50) fifty dollars, currency. 



Social Conditions. 

The people of California are intelligent and liberal in their opinions. Schools 
are numerous and excellent. Benevolent institutions abound. In no part of 
the world are the Masonic, Odd Fellow, and kindred benevolent Orders, sup- 



CALIFORNIA AS A HOME FOR THE EMIGRANT. 



37 



ported better. Few countries have more churches in proportion to the popula- 
tion. The laws are generally good, and the administration of justice is as strict 
as in any other American State. In San Francisco, life and property are quite 
as secure as in New York or Chicago. 

Advice to Emigrants. 

The following advice may be valuable to emigrants, especially to those going 
into a strange country, or not accustomed to travel : 

i . Buy your tickets for passage on railroad or steamboats, only at the office, 
before starting. Many of the runners who offer tickets for sale in the streets are 
swindlers. If you intend to go in a steamer or ship, examine the vessel before 
getting your ticket, and engage a particular birth or room in a part of the vessel 
that is clean, well ventilated and just comfortably warm. 

2. Never show your money nor let any stranger know that you have any. 
Thieves prefer to rob emigrants, who generally carry money with them, and 
cannot stop to prosecute them, and have no acquaintances to aid in the prose- 
cution. Do not mention the fact that you are an emigrant to persons who have 
no business to know it. 

3. Never carry any large sum of money with you. You can always buy 
drafts at banks, and if you are going to a strange place, you can give your photo- 
graph to the banker to forward to your destination, so that you can be identified 
without trouble when you want to draw your money. 

4. Avoid those strangers who claim to be old acquaintances, and whom you 
do not recollect. A certain class of thieves claim the acquaintance of ignorant 
countrymen whom they want to rob. 

5. Do not drink at the solicitation of strangers. The first point of the thief 
is to intoxicate or drug his victim. 

6. Do not play cards for money with strangers. In many cases they confed- 
erate to rob emigrants. 

7. Travel in company with old friends, if possible, and do not leave them. 
Thieves prefer to take their victims one at a time. 

8. If you see anybody pick up a full pocket-book, and he offers it to you for 
small sum ; or if you see some men playing cards, and you are requested to 
bet on some point where it seems certain that you must win ; or if you see an 
auctioneer selling a fine gold watch for five dollars, don't let them catch you. 
Emigrants are systematically swindled by such tricks. 

9. If, when you arrive in a strange place, you want information and advice, 
you can always get it by applying at the right place. First, apply at the office of 
the Immigration Society, if there is one. If you are a foreigner, you will proba- 
ably find in the large cities a Consular office or a benevolent society of your coun- 
trymen, and you can apply there. Usually, there are attentive and polite men at 
the police office. Public officers generally in the United States are ready to assist 
and advise strangers. 

10. Before starting from home, carefully read all the accessible books about 
the State or Territory to which you intend to go ; and when you arrive go. to 



38 



ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 



some place where you can find old friends, if you have any. If you are poor 
commence work immediately, but do not be in a hurry to buy land unless with 
the approval of men whom you can trust. Take a month or two to get informa- 
tion about the country. Advice about the purchase of land is often given with 
corrupt motives. It is veiy seldom that anything is lost by a delay of a week or 
two in closing a bargain for land, though the seller will frequently say that some- 
body else is just going to take it. But do not delay to purchase, if you have the 
means, for more than two or three months ; it is always cheaper for you to live 
on your own land. 

ii. Engage in some business with which you are familiar; and if its condi- 
tions are different from those to which you are accustomed, commence slowly, 
so as to learn at little expense. The agriculturist from Europe or the Atlantic 
States must learn anew many things in his business here. 

12. Never fear failure at farming on your own land, if you live economically, 
work hard and select your place well. 

13. It is better to be very poor for a few years on your own land than to be 
moderately poor as a tenant for others. 

14. In selecting a home, look ahead. Care more for ultimate than for 
immediate success. Wherever there is a large district of fertile soil with a good 
climate, you can confidently settled down. It must fill up, and the land must 
rise in value. The fewer the people the better opportunity you have to select 
the most desirable spots, and when immigration comes in the greater will be the 
relative increase of population. 

15. Before finally fixing upon a place to settle in California, examine what 
the average rainfall is; whether there are facilities for irrigation; what are the 
average temperatures of January, May and August; whether it is exposed to 
floods; whether fevers are common; whether it is in or near the line of any 
railroad likely to be built soon, and whether the soil is adapted to the vine, the 
mulberry, fruits and grain. 

Mining Excitements. 
One of the common incidents of business in California is the occurrence of 
mining excitements, under the influence of which thousands of men leave their 
homes and regular occupations in the hope of making a fortune in a few months 
at new diggings, of which marvelous reports are published. These reports are 
usually exaggerated, because there are many persons (such as owners of stages 
and steamers, hotel-keepers, brokers, owners of claims, etc.) who derive profit 
from the excitement. Experience has shown that these persons, or others work- 
ing : ~ their interest, do not hesitate to devise and circulate deliberate falsehoods, 
witn intent to deceive and defraud the ignorant and credulous. Experience also 
shows that false statements are often published by writers who know nothing 
about mines, and are misled either by designing men, or by their own over- 
sanguine disposition. Even in those cases in which the mines are marvelously 
rich, there is little chance for the new-comer not familiar with mining. The 
discoverers usually take up all the good claims before they let the public know 
anything of the discovery. If there is anything that they fail to find, the old 



CALIFORNIA AS A HOME FOR THE EMIGRANT. 



39 



miners, of whom the country is full, stand the best chance. But if the new- 
comer gets a good mine, he will find that it requires much money to open a 
mine, and much experience to open one properly. If he is poor, he must get 
the assistance of capitalists, who will take most of the profit. The day has gone 
by when men could make their fortunes with a pick and shovel in a few months 
of mining. As a proprietor of mines, the poor man, bred to other business, has 
little chance of success; and as a laborer, he can do better elsewhere. Wages 
are high, but the expenses are high too, the comforts of life are scarce, the work 
is often unhealthy and dangerous, and the employment uncertain. Nine out of 
ten of the old miners who go off on these mining excitements come out losers, 
even when the mines are rich, as in the case of White Pine; and when the 
diggings are poor, as they were at Kern River, all the time and money spent are 
entirely lost. 

Business Prudence. 

The poor man coming to California should understand that it is difficult to 
get a start here, but that after a good start is once obtained, life is easy. If he 
obtains employment, he should endeavor to become very skillful in his business, 
for an excellent workman gets better wages here and is more sure of employ- 
ment than in any other country. He should also exert himself to gain and 
deserve the confidence of his employer, for such exertion will pay well. He 
should stick to one place and one business, as nearly as possible. If he has a 
business in which he can invest his savings, or if he needs a home, that is the 
proper place for it; if not, he should take or send it to a Savings Bank. Neigh- 
bors or friends will want to borrow it, and will offer security and high interest ; 
but the safer plan is to prefer the bank. It requires much experience to know 
how to lend money without risk of loss. This State is full of men who know 
scores of methods for making fortunes in a few months, and they will lay out 
plans that may well delude the inexperienced; but the facts that they live from 
hand to mouth, have not a foot of ground, and are in debt to everybody that will 
trust them, furnish pretty good proof that he who lends to them will never see 
his money again. The man who is making a start should be content with slow 
and sure profits. There is so much wild speculation in California, that strangers 
often imagine it is necessaiy for them to take part in it, and they lose their 
money before they suspect that they are in peril, and perhaps at the very time 
when they fancy that they are on the road to fortune. There is no country in 
which close attention to the strictest rules of business prudence pays better than 
in California. 

The rate of wages is so high that a man with a good trade and economical 
habits can accumulate a little fortune in ten or fifteen years by putting his money 
in the savings bank, which is next to a home and a man's own business, the best 
place for money. The savings banks generally pay ten per cent, per annum, 
and the interest compounds semi-annually, so as to double the principal in eight 
years. But the savings of every month can always be added to the principal in 
the bank, and this is an important item in the course of years. California is full 
of speculators, but the majority do not make ten per cent, interest on their 



. ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 

investments, and many lose both principal and interest. Among the multitude 
there are some cases of brilliant success; but the stranger should look for his 
guide to the general and not the exceptional result. Speculation is a luxury in 
which rich men can afford to indulge; but poor men should be shy of it. There 
are now thousands of poor men who would have been independently wealthy if 
they had known enough when they had money to keep out of speculation. 
The following rules are applicable in California as well as elsewhere: 
Stick to your craft and master it thoroughly. Buy nothing at a distance. 
Invest no money in business which you do not understand or which you cannot 
oversee. Be industrious; work as hard to save a dollar as to earn one; live 
within your income, no matter how little it is, and lay by something every month 
as long as you are poor. Do not be afraid to appear poor. Avoid positions in 
which you must spend money in show and give your time without compensation, 
unless you can well afford it. Do not let others get in your debt, and do not 
get in debt to others beyond your means to pay. Self-respect and health are 
worth more than riches. Do not believe that youth is the only season for enjoy- 
ment. Take care of yourself; and a healthy and reputable middle age, with its 
experience, its ripened mind, its accumulated knowledge, friendship and money, 
will give you more pleasure than youth would have been capable of securing 
or appreciating. 

Conclusion. 

California is a large State, rich in many valuable metals, fertile in soil, pecu- 
liarly blessed in climate, inhabited by an intelligent, active and enterprising, 
people, and strange in many of the conditions of its business; and it affords far 
more information, desirable for immigrants, than can be compressed into a 
pamphlet like this. They who desire to learn more of the State are referred to 
the following books: 

" The Resources of California," by John S. Hittell, published by A. Roman 
& Co., of San Francisco and New York, is a duodecimo volume of five hundred 
pages. It treats at considerable length, of the topography, climate, botany, 
zoology, agriculture, mining and scenery, of the State. Price, one dollar and 
fifty cents. 

" The Natural Wealth of California," edited by T. F. Cronise, published by 
H. H. Bancroft & Co., of San Francisco, is a large octavo volume of eight hun- 
dred pages, treating the same topics, and also giving full descriptions of the 
several counties, and a sketch of the early history of the State. Price, five dollars. 

"The Report upon the Mineral Resources of the Pacific Slope, for 1866," 
by J. Ross Browne, is a federal document of three hundred and sixty octavo- 
pages, of which two hundred are devoted to the mines and mining laws of Cali- 
fornia. 

"The Report upon the Mineral Resources of the Pacific Slope, for 1867," by 
J. Ross Browne, is a federal document of six hundred and seventy-five pages, of 
which three hundred are occupied with a description of the mines of California. 

All these books can be found in the principal libraries and bookstores of the 
United States. 



California Immigrant Union, 

[ORGANIZED OCTOBER, 1869] 

FOR THE PURPOSE OF 

ENCOURAGING IMMIGRATION 

TO THE 

ST^-TEl OIF 1 Q^X-iIIEnOIFLlNri:.^ 



PRINCIPAL OFFICE : 

534 CALIFORNIA STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, 



Immigrants and others desiring reliable information in reference to Public 
or Private Lands in California and the mode of acquiring them, can address 
their communications to the Manager or General Agent, or apply at the 

CENTRAL OFFICE, 534 CALIFORNIA STREET, SAN FRANCISCO. 

Information can be obtained of the best quality of Farming Lands, in the 
valleys and foothills, at prices varying from 

$1.50, $2, $2.50, $3 and $5 per Acre and upwards — - 

On liberal terms — one, two, three, four and five years' credit. 

The "Union" takes particular care to inform applicants in regard to Govern- 
ment lands and lands belonging to railroad companies. 

The " Union " is prepared to make the most desirable arrangements for the 
settlement ot colonies from the States east of the Rocky Mountains and from 
European countries, and to obtain cheap transportation for them direct to 
California. 

Good Farming Lands, in tracts of 5,000 to 50,000 acres, can be obtained at 
$1.50 to $2.50 per acre, and on liberal terms. 

New-comers visiting the different counties of California, in search of farming 
or other lands for settlement, will be provided with letters to the Agents of the 
" Union " or other intelligent residents who are disposed to favor settlers, from 
whom such precise information as they may need — concerning the quality, values 
and titles, to property in the locality — may be obtained. 

Pamphlets containing reliable information in regard to California sent to any 
part of the United States or Europe, when ordered. 

Parties in California having lands suitable for Immigrants, and wishing them 
offered, can send description and terms to this office. 

Information of all kinds^beneficial to Immigrants, respectfully solicited, and 
will be carefully given to ne^ comers upon their arrival. 

President - :.......WM. T. COLEMAN; 

GeneralAgent _ W. H. MARTIN. 

CENTRAL OFFICE - - 534 California Street, San Francisco. 



42 



ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 



Total Area of California, - 

Surveyed, _______ 

Spanish and Mexican Grants, - - - - - " 

Granted for School and Educational purposes, - " 

" Internal Improvements, Public Buildings, etc., " 



Sq. Miles, 188,951 

Acres, 120,947,840 

30,500,000 

6,030,814 

6,765,404 

506,400 




CENTRAL OFFICE of the 

No- 534 CALIFORNIA 

President, W. T. Coleman, 



MAP, ETC., OF CALIFORNIA. 



43 



Claimed by Railroads, 
Disposed of by Government, 
Still open to Settlement, 
Available for Tillage, 
Of which is Government Land, - 
Land Inclosed, - ' . - 



Acres, 



10,424,000 
18,500,000 
86,000,000 
88,000,000 
44,000,000 
4,500,000 




California Immigrant Union, 

ST., SAN FRANCISCO, 

General Agent, Wm. H. Martin. 



APPENDIX. 



Information Concerning California, 

from 
OFFICIAL AND OTHER RELIABLE SOURCES. 



The Public Lands of Southern California. 

The following copy of a letter from Hon. Joseph S. Wilson, Commissioner 
of the National General Land Office at Washington, to the American Consul at 
Rotterdam, replying to inquiries made by residents of Holland intending to 
emigrate to California, contains information that "will be of interest to every 
person who wishes to be well informed concerning the public lands of this State : 

United States of America, Department of the Interior, I 
General Land Office, May 13th, 1869. ) 

ALBERT Rhodes, United States Consulate, Rotterdam, Holland— -Dear Sir: In reply 
to your letter of the 7th ult., requesting information in regard to public lands in Southern 
California, especially in the neighborhood of Los Angeles, I have to state that the valuable 
lands in the southern portion of that region, in the counties of San Diego, Los Angeles, San. 
Bernardino, Kern, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, are to a considerable extent held 
under Mexican grants, many of which have been confirmed by the United States since we 
have succeeded to the sovereignty of the country. The comities of San Luis Obispo and 
Kern may form an exception to this statement, as Government land of excellent quality exists 
in each; but so much has been recently entered under the pre-emption and homestead laws, 
and located with college scrip, and still continues to be taken, in consequence of a numerous 
emigration to Southern California within the past two years, that it would be hazardous to 
undertake to specify the quantity of public land at present subject to entry, as the next 
returns from the local officers may show the amount considerably diminished. There is 
however an abundance of unoccupied land of the best quality in each of the counties named, 
which, whether belonging to the Government or in the hands of private owners, may be 
readily obtained at very moderate prices, generally varying from one dollar to five dollars 
and upwards per acre, according to value. 

Lands in the hands of persons claiming under Mexican grants confirmed by the United 
States, are perfect as to title. Lands claimed under grants not so confirmed, seldom rate at 
a high figure; and should the title subsequently fail, and the lands be declared a part of the 
public domain, the laws of the United States extend to parties in possession under con- 
veyances from former grantees, a pre-emption right to enter the land so occupied at the 
minimum price of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, so that in either event the settler 
will obtain the land at a very low price. Indeed, at the present day no apprehension need 
be felt about the title, of lands in California, as most of the old Mexican grants, valid or 
invalid, have passed through the ordeal of judicial investigation, and have either been con- 



APPENDIX 



45 



firmed or the lands claimed declared part of the public domain; and even if an occasional 
claim should be met with not acted upon, the Acts of Congress make such liberal provisions in 
Favor of bona Jide settlers that no great injury can result in the event of such claim proving 
invalid. 

An emigrant from Europe, entirely unacquainted with the land system of the United 
States, or the nature of titles in this country, and the mode of recording them, might be 
liable to make a bad bargain, unless he fully informed himself. But there are abundant 
opportunities of ascertaining the condition of the title of every tract of land, and a person of 
ordinary prudence need not to go amiss. 

Government lands in California may be taken under the pre-emption or homestead laws, 
the entries being effected in the manner pointed out in the accompanying circular from this 
office, dated March ioth, 1869. In the southern part of the State these lands are mostly 
located to the eastward from the Coast Mountains; but there are, nevertheless, in the western 
portion of each of the above-named counties, small quantities of public land not yet occupied, 
which may be entered at the District Land Office at San Francisco, excepting lands in Kern 
County, which must be entered at Visalia, in Tulare County. The localities of the different 
places mentioned may be readily understood by inspecting the accompanying map of that 
State; an examination of which will also show the localities of private grants confirmed at 
the date of the map, the names of which, with corresponding numerals, are placed in the 
margin. 

It will be observed that the good lands of Southern California are found on the Pacific, 
in the valleys and on the foot-hills of the Coast Mountains, extending inland from twenty- 
five miles to seventy-five miles, embracing an area susceptible of cultivation and admirably 
adapted to horticulture, equal in extent to the State of Massachusetts. 

The climate of these valleys, some little distance from the coast, is not surpassed in any 
portion of the world; the intense heat experienced in the arid plains further to the east being 
modified here by an altitude of several thousand feet above the level of the ocean. Nu- 
merous streams of water flow through the valleys — many of them permanent — furnishing 
the means of irrigating large bodies of land. The grape vine flourishes here luxuriantly; 
more than six million being cultivated in Los Angeles County alone, yielding one and a half 
million gallons of wine, and more than one hundred thousand gallons of brandy, besides 
large quantities of choice grapes for the San Francisco market. 

The grape attains vigorous growth in almost every variety of soil, is remarkably free 
from disease, and requires no irrigation. It flourishes as well in the foothills and on the sides 
of the mountains as in the valleys, and produces a stock strong enough to dispense with the 
necessity of stakes, thus greatly reducing the amount of labor required in a vineyard. A 
vine is now growing in Santa Barbara County twelve inches in diameter four feet from the 
ground. At six feet from the ground the stem is divided, the branches extending in every 
direction, covering an area of ten thousand square feet, and producing annually twelve thou- 
sand pounds of grapes, in bunches from fifteen to eighteen inches in length, averaging from 
six to seven pounds each. This vine is of the old Mission grape., and was planted forty -three 
years ago. 

But the soil and climate of these valleys are equally well adapted to the growth of the 
orange, lemon, lime, citron, fig, walnut, olive, banana, almond, filbert and currant; and 
wheat, barley, corn, potatoes, cotton, tobacco and sugar-cane thrive well. In an orange 
grove of two thousand trees, near Los Angeles, the annual crop averages one thousand five 
hundred oranges to each tree, some of the trees producing as many as four thousand each. 
The sides and summits of the mountains contain an abundance of pine, cedar, hemlock, 
maple and oak; and deposits of gold, silver, copper, tin, marble, alabaster, asphaltum, 
petroleum, sulphur, salt and coal, are numerous. 

******-»»*** 

Of the four million or five million acres in Southern California adapted to the vine and 
the mulberry tree, and a great variety of semi-tropical fruits, not much over one hundred 
thousand acres are thus cultivated — probably not that quantity; and although that region is 



46 ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 

capable of accommodating and comfortably supporting a population of one million five hun- 
dred thousand, its present population falls short of forty thousand. 

Hundreds of thousands of acres of the finest lands, blest with a climate equal to that of 
the fairest portions of Italy, are held in extensive tracts under Mexican grants, and are either 
entirely unoccupied or devoted to grazing; the proprietors, however, manifesting a willing- 
ness to subdivide and sell their claims as rapidly as the increase of settlers creates a demand 
for the same. 

As an illustration of what may be accomplished by an enterprising colony of settlers, 
the village of Anaheim, in Los Angeles- County, may be referred to. In the summer of 1S57 
a company of Germans acquainted with grape culture, bought one thousand two hun- 
dred and sixty-five acres of land in the valley of the Santa Ana River, at two dollars 
per acre, dividing it into fifty rectangular lots, of twenty acres each, with streets between 
them, and subdividing the residue into sixty town lots — one for each of the proprietors, and 
ten for public purposes. The lots were all fenced with willow, sycamore and poplar, and 
about ten acres of each planted with vines. At present there are over one million vines 
growing in this village — most of which are in bearing — already producing annually over five 
hundred thousand gallons of wine and some ten thousand gallons of brandy. Of the various 
kinds of fruit trees there are more than ten thousand. Every one of the fifty lots contains a 
comfortable homestead, and the village has a population of about four hundred, with a good 
public school, several stores and a post-office in the town. Each of these lots is worth at the 
present time fully ten thousand dollars, and is continually increasing in value. The history 
of Anaheim demonstrates the advantage of settlements by colonies. Had each of the original 
fifty settlers of the village located by himself, cut off from the encouraging sympathy and 
mutual counsel of congenial neighbors, it is doubtful whether success would have crowned 
the efforts of one-fourth of their number; but adopting the colony plan, they have in twelve 
years advanced to a situation not only of comfort, but of comparative wealth. 

There are many opportunities, not only in the County of Los Angeles, but in each of the 
others named above, and, in fact, in nearly every county in California, to repeat the experi- 
ment of the Anaheim settlement, under circumstances even more favorable than existed in 
that case. 

Since 1857 the character of California as one of the best wine -producing countries in the 
world has been fully established ; many foreign varieties of the grape have been tested, and 
much that twelve years ago rested upon uncertainties has been established by repeated 
experiments; in addition to which the great continental railway from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific has been completed, opening a market for the products of the California vineyards. 

All these advantages, that did not exist when Anaheim was founded, will render the 
trials of similar colonies much less severe. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

JOS. S. WILSON, Commissioner. 

Prices of Land in California, 

The Surveyor-General of California, in his report for 1869 (page 12), says: 

The emigrant (of limited means) will find, on his arrival here, that the price of land around 
the Bay of San Francisco is high, entirely out of his reach, but the lands in the valleys not 
bordering the bay are not unreasonably high. In San Joaquin County, good agricultural 
lands can be bought for from seven dollars to thirty dollars per acre ; in Stanislaus County, 
at from five dollars to twenty-five dollars per acre ; in Merced, at from five dollars to twent) 
dollars per acre ; in Fresno, from two and one -half dollars to ten dollars per acre ; in Tulart 
and Kern, about the same as in Fresno. These counties are all in the San Joaquin Valley, 
and for productions they have no superior anywhere. In Los Angeles and San Diego, lands 
are reasonably low. In Mendocino, Humboldt, Del Norte and Trinity counties, the im- 
proved lands are high, but there are thousands of acres of unoccupied land that the settler can 
get for one dollar and a quarter per acre, with fine timber, water and grass. 



APPENDIX. 



47 



The " California Immigrant Union " is prepared to enable immigrants to 
make purchases of fine farming and grazing lands in the counties above named, 
at the prices mentioned, the rates varying according to the location and the 
amount of improvement already made. Public lands, concerning which all 
necessary information will be given at its office, are obtainable at Government rates, 
two dollars and twenty-five cents per acre within the railroad reserves, and one 
dollar and fifty cents per acre elsewhere. Where locations are made in advance 
of the surveys no payments are necessary until the land is surveyed, and mean- 
time the settler is abundantly protected in his rights under both National and 
State laws, and taxes are only levied upon the improvements as long as the title 
to the land remains in the Government 

State Lands. 
In addition to the lands offered by the General Government, the Report of 
the Surveyor-General of California, made to the Legislature November ist, 1869, 
shows that there are in this State in the neighborhood of one million acres of 
school lands granted by Congress to the State yet undisposed of. These com- 
prise the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections in each township, and such other 
lands as may be selected in lieu of those sections where they are covered by 
Spanish grants, etc. They are mostly located in the mining and timbered 
regions of the State, and have not been sold because the General Government 
has not yet extended its surveys over them, and population is sparse or wanting 
altogether in their vicinity. The surveys are, however, being gradually extended 
over these districts. These school lands are sold by the State at the price of one 
dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, of which twenty per cent, only need be 
paid down, while the balance remains on credit, with interest at ten per cent, 
per annum, until full payment is made, when the patents are issued. The 
swamp and overflowed lands along the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, and 
their tributaries in the valleys, are sold at one dollar per acre, of which twenty 
per cent, only is payable within fifty days of the approval of the survey — ■ 
the balance remaining at legal interest — the whole of the proceeds being appli- 
cable to their reclamation for the benefit of the purchaser. When reclaimed 
they become among the most valuable farm lands in the State, the soil being a 
nch alluvium, and the moisture preventing any failure of the crops. Sherman 
Island, at the confluence of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, has been 
thus reclaimed by the purchasers, and proves admirably adapted to the raising 
of vegetables and fruits of all kinds, which find ready sale in the market of San 
Francisco, and the land sells at thirty dollars per acre. The success of this 
enterprise is encouraging similar undertakings, 

"What Sort of a Country California Is. 

The following is an extract from the Annual Address, delivered by Hon. J. 
B. Crockett, Judge of the Supreme Court of California, before the State Agricul- 
tural Society, September 21st, 1868: 

The true secret of our rapid growth in all that constitutes the real greatness and gran- 



4« 



ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA 



deur of a State, lies chiefly in the fact that nature has furnished us with a genial climate of 
unparalleled salubrity ; with a soil of unexampled fertility, diversified with beautiful plains, 
enchanting valleys, undulating hills and rugged mountains — the whole being washed on one 
side by the Pacific Ocean, with its healthful breezes, and intersected by navigable streams 
from the mountains to the sea. When we remember that these beautiful plains and valleys 
not only rival the delta of the Nile in their wonderful fertility, but far excel it in the variety 
of their products and in the salubrity of the climate, and that these rugged mountains are 'not 
only covered with gigantic forests of valuable timber, but contain within their rocky caverns 
hidden treasures which have long since put to an open shame the story of Aladdin and his 
lamp, it requires no profound political economist to disclose by subtle reasoning the real 
secret of our unexampled progress as a people. Where Nature has been so prodigal in her 
gifts, tempting the husbandman with such generous returns for his labor, stimulating the 
enterprise of the miner with such enormous stores of hidden wealth, and infusing new energy 
into the merchant by spreading out before him the Pacific Ocean, with its sunny islands and 
its distant shores courting our growing commerce, the wonder is not that we have accom- 
plished so much but that we have not accomplished more. The truth is, that we are so 
absorbed in the daily pursuits of business, in the fierce strife of politics, in the eager rivalry 
for wealth, and in the frivolities of fashion, that we but seldom pause to contemplate the bound- 
less resources of our favored State, and to return thanks to God for the goodly heritage He 
has given us. Of all people who breathe the free air of heaven, we have the best reason not 
only to be satisfied with our condition, but to be devoutly thankful for the innumerable bless- 
ings which we enjoy. I say this in no spirit of exaggeration, but as a fact which is capable 
of complete demonstration. Let us see if it is so. 

In the first place, good health is essential to the happiness of every human being. The 
poor invalid, pining on his bed of anguish, is blind to the beauties of nature, deaf to the 
" concord of sweet sounds," indifferent to all the appliances of luxury and art, and consumed 
with the longing, eager desire for renewed health. In no other country can there be found 
such assurance of good health as in California. With a genial, agreeable climate, subject to 
but few variations in temperature, with an atmosphere of wonderful purity, kept fresh and 
sweet by the trade winds from the Pacific, and with no summer showers to produce a putrid 
mass of decaying vegetable matter in the summer months, it is not a matter of surprise that 
robust health is the general rule, and serious sickness, except from constitutional or abnormal 
causes, is the rare exception. All strangers observe the beautifully -developed forms, the 
rounded limbs, swelling bust and rosy cheeks, of California children ; and with a climate so 
favorable to sound health and muscular development, if we shall properly train the moral 
and mental faculties, the men and women hereafter to grow up in California will furnish the 
finest types of the Anglo-Saxon race. The time is not distant when invalids from all parts o\ 
the world will flock to California to avoid the extreme cold of Northern winters, the sultry 
heat of Southern summers, and to breathe the health-giving breezes of our mountains and 
valleys. 

Let it be remembered that we as yet have a population of only about five hundred 
thousand, whilst we have about sixty-five millions of acres suitable for agricultural purposes, 
less than two millions of which are in actual cultivation. When it is borne in mind that, 
owing to the amazing fertility of the soil and the variety of its products, a family can be 
maintained in comfort upon an area incredibly small, as compared with other countries, it 
{requires no prophetic vision to foresee that, when our unoccupied millions of acres shall be 
reduced to cultivation, and improved methods of culture shall be introduced, we can not 
only support a population of many millions, but California must, of necessity, become one ol 
the richest agricultural districts on the habitable globe. 

It is, therefore, to the farmer, the honest tiller of the soil, that we must chiefly look for 
the highest development of our material wealth. And here, let me inquire, what other coun- 
try wears so captivating an aspect to. the thrifty, enterprising, industrious fanner ? His lands 
will produce from twenty-five to thirty bushels of grain per acre, with moderate care ; and 
the next year he will get a good volunteer crop of twelve or fifteen bushels to the acre, with- 



APPENDIX. 



49 



«Ht srcwmg. ftis grain h free from weevil, but seldom damaged by rust or smut, can be har- 
vested without fear of ram, and then thrashed and piled'up in the field until sent to market. 
The winters are so mild that but little fuel is required, and, for the same reason, stock demand 
but little feeding. When we add that all kinds of stock thrive and grow beyond precedent, 
comparatively free from disease, and that the most delicious fruits and the finest vegetables 
abound on every side, we complete the picture of this fanner's elysium. But why need I 
repeat facts which you all know better than I ? k Why weary you with dry details, which are 
as familiar to you all as the days of the week? a Suffice it to say, that whilst these millions 
of acres remain untilled, let no ungrateful wretch complain that he can find no work for his 
hands to do in California. Instead of loafing about the cities earning a precarious living, 
often by questionable methods, and daily complaining of a lack of employment, let him go 
into the country and rent, if he cannot buy, a small piece of land.' If he will then go to 
work upon it with courage and industry, abstain from vices, deport himself honestly, and 
thank God that his lot has been cast in so goodly a land, he will soon have cause of grati- 
tude to me for this advice. If unmarried, he will soon be worthy to become the husband ol 
some honest girl, which, if he be a sensible man, he will consider it his bounden duty to do. 

The Sacramento Valley. 

The following description of the valley of the Sacramento River is taken from 
an address delivered by Hon. George Barstow, at Chico, Butte County, before 
the Upper Sacramento Agricultural Society, September 13th, 1869. A glance 
at the map will show that he indulged in no mere figures of* speech,' but is 
abundantly justified in all he said: 

THE SACRAMENTO VALLEY. 
Let us survey for a moment the ground where we stand. We are assembled in the midst 
of the Upper Sacramento Valley, at a spot which the genius of American enterprise dedicated 
to civilization only nine years ago. Yonder in the valley comes the Sacramento River, pour- 
ing down from gold-bearing mountains and carrying in its current the melted snows of the 
Sierra Nevada. Far through the trees it winds and flows. It is the child of the Sierras, and 
reflects their grandeur in its- course. Still and deep it rolls on, bearing many a bark and 
goodly steamer upon its bosom and constituting the charm of this landscape. On its left 
bank stands the Capital of the State, whose people built a barrier against its current and con- 
quered the power of its floods. To me there are few objects in nature more truly sublime than 
a valley spread out by an Omnipotent hand, from foot-hills to foot-hills, on such a vast scale 
as this. When dry and parched, no desert is more dreary. When uninhabited, no solitude 
is more profound and imposing. But when the abodes of man dots its surface, when the plow 
has furrowed it, when greenness clothes it as with a garment, or when its fields are loaded 
with harvest stores, then it is one of the loveliest objects that gladdens the eye of man, and 
its riches are but a type of the inexhaustible riches of the Creator. But the great valley yet 
waits for the railroad and the canal. Wherever such a system of internal improvements as I 
have sketched shall be carried out, its teeming population will be counted by millions. San 
Francisco will be greater than ancient Thebes was. Sacramento will be greater than San 
Francisco now is, and Vallejo will be the second city west of the Rocky Mountains. Look 
again at the valley as it lies spread out around us, forty miles in width from side to side. 
There are principalities in Germany where civil government is maintained, and all the pomp 
of a court kept up, on a much smaller extent of territory than the Sacramento Valley. The 
inhabitants of New England can, with difficulty, conceive of a valley forty miles wide. The 
dwellers by the Mohawk and the Shenandoah can have just as little comprehension of it. The 
valleys of the Rhine and the Rhone are insignificant in point of territory when compared 
with it. And we have just as little idea of the beautiful cultivation of their valleys as they 
have of the prodigious extent of ours. Can we not learn a lesson each from the other ? Our 
lesson is that the most magnificent natural advantages are nothing unless we improve them. 
4 



5° 



ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 



Their lesson is, not to remain clinging to the scanty acres of Europe, but to take up Quite 
march for the New World. 

San Joaquin and Tulare Valleys. 
The following description of San Joaquin and Tulare valleys is an extract 
from an address by Dr. E. S. Holden, an old and distinguished resident of the 
district, delivered at Stockton before the San Joaquin Stock and Agricultural 
Implement Association, September, 1869, to be found in the Report of the 
State Agricultural Society for 1868-9, at P^ 34 l ' 

The great valleys, San Joaquin and Tulare, extending from Stockton to Tejon Pass, 
three hundred miles, by an average width of fifty miles, embracing twelve counties, contain 
over eighteen million three hundred and sixty-eight thousand acres, a territory larger than 
all the New England States, save New Hampshire. These counties contain land suscepti- 
ble of cultivation, six million of acres; swamp and tide lands, five hundred thousand acres. 
This amount of land good for cultivation does not embrace land in the hundreds of little 
valleys in the mountains and on the foot-hills, now well known to be perfectly adapted to 
fruit culture, particularly the grape in most of its varieties. These valleys have been little 
known or thought of outside of their resident population until recently. Since eighteen hun- 
dred and sixty-eight more land has been entered in the Stockton Land Office (over two hundred 
thousand acres) than in all previous years. The lands in the valleys bordering on the Stanislaus, 
Tuolumne, Merced, Mariposa, Owens, Fresno and Chowchilla rivers, are extensively rich in 
soil, being a sandy loam, alluvium, and enriched for ages by the accumulation of decomposed 
vegetable matter and mineral washings from the mountains and hillsides ; also, similar lands 
bordering on King's, White, Kern and Tulare rivers, and the score of smaller streams which, 
like the larger streams or rivers, meander through the land from the base of the Sierra Nevada 
mountains, and empty their waters into the San Joaquin River and Tulare Lake, at a distance of 
from twenty -five to forty miles from the mountains. Hundreds of thousands of acres in the 
mountains and hillsides afford abundance of rich grasses the entire year for grazing. This 
section of the State has always been preferred by the Spanish and American settlers, the cli- 
mate being more genial for raising the immense herds of stock than the northern section. 
The old Spanish breed of cattle and horses, that have continually grazed by the hundreds of 
thousands in these valleys since eighteen hundred and fifty-five, have been reduced in num- 
bers, and stock of all kinds has wonderfully increased in quality by the introduction of pure 
American breeds, and recently by pure blooded or thoroughbred horses, Devon and Durham 
cattle, Spanish and French Merino sheep, Berkshire, Suffolk and Essex hogs. 

One instance in regard to what this valley (San Joaquin) has produced this season, of 
wheat, is worth a moment's mention, from the fact that three years ago this section was a 
wide waste, not supposed to be worth the expense and time to cultivate. This section, called 
the Paradise Country, lies between the Stanislaus and Tuolumne rivers, embracing a territory 
of two hundred and thirty thousand three hundred acres, in one field of wheat. Fifteen bush- 
els to the acre is the estimated average per acre, or equal to about three million four hundred 
and fifty-six thousand bushels. About an equal amount of wheat was raised this season in 
the neighborhood of this truly Paradise. A nice little freight for a railroad. 

In the Alpine regions, dense forests cover millions of acres, producing valuable woods for 
mechanical purposes, and varieties of pines for lumber ; also minerals of all kinds, inexhaust- 
ible quarries of pure marble, quartz, lime, slate and freestone. 

This State contains one hundred and fifty-four thousand one hundred and sixteen square 
miles, or ninety-eight million six hundred and thirty-four thousand two hundred and forty 
acres of land. Of this, sixty-five millions of acres are adapted to agriculture and fifteen mil- 
lions to grazing, the balance being mountain and swamp, or tule land. Under judicious 
management, experience has demonstrated that almost all productions of the soil that are 
raised elsewhere can be produced in California. This fact is by this time undoubtedly well 



APPENDIX 



5' 



known to all observing and reading persons, yet it is well for Californians to keep this fact be- 
for the people, a la Sherman, who made an immense fortune by keeping his lozenges before 
the babies. 

There are several magnificent features in these valleys (the San Joaquin and Tulare) 
probably unsurpassed in the world. The unparalleled grandeur of the scenery ; the soil and 
climate ; the facilities for irrigating the whole valley land at a small expense, comparatively ; 
the' many large rivers and scores of intervening streams that all spring from the mountains and 
meander through the land, and empty their waters into the San Joaquin and Tulare Lake, 
have a fall from the base of the Sierra Nevadas to the river and lake of about eight feet to the 
mile, thus giving sufficient force to spread their waters over the plains, by a system of canals 
and ditches. 

The picturesque scenery is on a scale grand beyond description. Throughout all the 
Alpine region, hundreds of lofty peaks piled one above the other, like stepping-stones to 
other regions, varying in height from four hundred to fifteen thousand feet above the level of 
the sea, are truly sublime and majestic, surpassing that of Switzerland, which for ages has 
been famed for possessing the largest body of elevated land and the largest number of moun- 
tain peaks known, and the greatest number of square miles eight thousand feet above tide 
water. While Switzerland has only four peaks above thirteen thousand feet, and but one 
hundred and fifty square miles above eight thousand feet, the Sierra Nevada Mountains have 
one hundred peaks above ten thousand feet, and three hundred square miles above eight 
thousand feet. There are several peaks, according to Professor Brewer's estimate, above 
twelve thousand feet. Mount Shasta, which towers in solitary grandeur seven thousand feet 
above everything in its vicinity, and shows three States, is no longer the highest peak, being 
but fourteen thousand four hundred and forty feet. In Kern County, opposite Tulare Lake, 
is a peak supposed by Professor Brewer to be the highest in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. 
Mr. King, of the Brewer surveying party, reached an elevation of fourteen thousand seven 
hundred and thirty feet, as high as he was able to get, and from three hundred to four hundred 
feet was supposed to be above him. This peak not only dethrones Mount Shasta, but also 
the highest Alpine region of the Alps. 

The Sierra Nevada Mountains, which flank on the east the length of California, seven hun- 
dred miles, overlooking these splendid valleys, is one of the most romantic features of the 
State, snow-capped in the winter, and in the summer and fall wearing a somber blue, which 
gives them an indescribable grandeur and leads one's thoughts to an infinite power — the 
Creator of the heavens and the earth, 

Room for Immigration in California. 

The Surveyor-General of the State of California, in his last report to the 
Legislature,- November 1st, 1869 (page 12), says, when speaking of Immigra- 
tion: 

A few remarks on this important subject would not be out of place in this report. The 
valley of the San Joaquin, stretching three hundred miles southward, with an average width 
of thirty miles, is capable of sustaining a population of one hundred thousand.* The Sacra- 
mento Valley, lying in a northerly direction from Sacramento, will sustain as many or more 
than the San Joaquin. The western slope of the Sierra Nevada can more than quadruple its 
present population. 

The rolling hills belonging to the two coast ranges can sustain a pastoral population of 
many thousands. The valleys of Napa, San Jose, Suisun and Sonoma, can comfortably sup- 
port ten times their present population. The counties of Mendocino, Humboldt, Del Norte, 
Trinity, Siskiyou and Shasta, with their inexhaustible forests of timber, rich soil and pastur- 

* Since the foregoing was in type we are informed by the Surveyor-General that this was a typographical 
error occurring in the office of the State printer, and that for " one hundred thousand " we should read " ona 
million/' 



5* 



ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 



age, will give employment to tens of thousands of industrious people. The counties of Los 
Angeles, San Diego, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, with then - semi- 
tropical climate and excellent soil, will furnish homes for as many inhabitants as the whole 
of New England now contains. 

The smallness of these estimates will surprise any one who compares them 
with the figures concerning the density of population in any of the countries of 
Europe or the older Eastern States. They were probably intended only to apply 
to such occupation and cultivation as now prevails in the portions of California 
already settled. |(P 

That a better idea of the size of California and its capacity for additional 
population may be obtained by those who have not heretofore examined the 
subject, we give the following figures, taken from the " American Year Book 
and National Register" for 1869, Vol. 1, showing the areas and population of 
some of the Eastern States: 

Square Miles. Population. 

New York 47,000 3*880,735 

Pennsylvania 46,000 2,906, 1 15 

Maine 35, 000 628,279 

Maryland 1 1, 124 687,049 

Vermont 10,212 315,098 

New Hampshire 9,280 326,073 

Massachusetts 7,800 1,267,031 

New Jersey 7,576 672,035 

Connecticut 4,674 460,147 

Delaware 2,120 112,216 

Rhode Island 1,306 184,965 

182,092 11,439,743 



The areas of all these States, which are contiguous, added together do not 
equal that of California by over six thousand eight hundred square miles, a terri- 
tory exceeding that of Connecticut and Delaware, so that, if the populations of 
those two States (five hundred and seventy-two thousand three hundred and 
sixty-three) were again added to that which the above States contain, on an 
American basis, California is^capable of supporting a population of over twelve 
millions, if not more densely settled than the States mentioned. 

If, however, we compare its area and population with those of European 
countries, the possible future of California, and the number of people it is " capa- 
ble of sustaining," calculated on such a basis, is surprising. The following 
figures are as given by the same authority! 

Square Miles. Population. 

France 209,428 38,192,094 

Spain a 195,607 16,302,625 

California 188,981 600,000 

Sweden 170,634 4,160,677 

North German Confederation . 160,207 29,910,377 

Great Britain 121,115 ••• 29,321,288 

Italy 109,837 24,368,787 



^ 



APPENDIX. 53 

If we take the smaller States of Europe, not much larger than some ol our 
counties, and together not equaling our State in size, the figures will further sur- 
prise the reader. They are taken from the same authority: 

Square Miles. Population. 

Portugal 37,977 4,351,519 

Bavaria 29,373 4,824,421 

Greece 19,353 *' ■'. 1,348,522 

Switzerland 15,722 2,510,494 

Denmark. 14,734 ? ;$ 1,608,095 

Belgium 11,373 •• 4,984,451 

Baden 5,912 . , 1,434,970' 

Saxony,, , 5,779 .."....?... 2,423,401 

Thus the San Joaquin Valley alone, estimated as above by the Surveyor- 
General as three hundred miles long, with an average width of thirty miles, 
which will not include the foot hills, has an area of nine thousand square miles, 
or nearly that of New Hampshire, with its population of over three hundred and 
twenty-six thousand ; is one-third larger than Massachusetts, with its population 
of one million two hundred and sixty-seven thousand, and nearly twice as large 
as Connecticut, with a population of four hundred and sixty thousand. 

Together, the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys are larger than Belgium 
and Saxony, with their more than seven millions of population, and, with proper 
cultivation, equal in fertility. We do not wish, 'however, to see our State thus 
crowded, but merely refer to these figures for comparison, and to show the large 
amount of vacant land we possess, 

The Kind of Immigrants California "Wants. 
The following extract from the Report of the State Board of Agriculture for 
1869, to the State Legislature at its last session (page 9), correctly states what 
kind of immigrants California desires to receive. All such can rest assured that 
no other country offers equal rewards for enterprising and industrious men : 

The class of immigration we most need in California is such as will come to make per- 
manent homes for themselves and families. We want, above all others, persons skilled ia 
a great variety of agricultural pursuits. We want persons skilled in the culture and manu- 
facture of silk, in all its departments. We want vine growers and wine makers. We want 
beet raisers and sugar manufacturers. We want tea culturists and fruit preservers. In shorty 
we want people skilled in the production of all the necessaries and luxuries of life, for we -have 
a State possessed of all the requisite conditions for their successful cultivation. We want such 
as will bring with them sufficient means, energy and capacity, to enter upon business for 
themselves ; such as will buy land and become citizens and practical and prosperous farm- 
ers, or build shops and factories, and follow some mechanical or manufacturing occupation. 
In order to induce this class of persons to leave their homes and business in the Atlantic 
States and come here to reside, we must promise them opportunities for making better homes 
and better business here. Are we prepared in good faith to make such promises ? And, having 
made them, are we prepared in like good faith to fulfill them ? So far as natural advantages, 
such "as climate, soil and location, are concerned, we are prepared to answer both these ques- 
tions in the affirmative. We may also say there are millions of acres of arable land, much 
of it as good as any now cultivated in the State, lying idle and unoccupied, and that by the 
completion of railroads already projected, and many of them now being built, much of this 



54 



ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 



"land will in a short time be brought within easy distances of good markets for products that 
**nay be raised upon it. 

On this subject the Surveyor-General of California, in his report to the Legis- 
lature, dated November ist, 1869, also says (page 13): 

The State should use every exertion to promote immigration of the industrious classes 
from Europe. We want workers; we have non-producers enough, here already: we have 
doctors, lawyers clerks and politicians, in abundance ; we now want farmers, mechanics, 
artisans and wine growers; all of this class can find profitable employment here, and in a 
very short time can make comfortable homes for themselves and their families. 

We have already quoted the views of the Governor of the State upon this 
subject. 

When Farmers should Come to California. 

Persons desiring to come to California to engage in agriculture, should 
arrive here as early as September, and not later than October, as then the first 
rains occur, and plowing commences. An earlier arrival will give them time to 
look about them and make a judicious selection of their lands. 

Diversified Agriculture. 

Intelligent agriculturists, coming here from other States and countries where 
fanning is carried on upon scientific principles, and where rotation of crops and 
careful manuring of the soil are universally practiced and stipulated for in all 
leases, that the land may be kept at its highest productive condition, will be sur- 
prised to learn that in the majority of instances neither of those essentials of good 
farming have yet been practiced to any great extent in this State. Instead of 
that, very many of our farmers are simply grain raisers, devoting their whole 
land, time and capital, year after year, to the raising of a single crop, and buying 
even their vegetables from store keepers and vegetable peddlers, who bring them 
from other districts. Thus our railroads and steamboats are often engaged in 
bringing grain to the city and carrying vegetables back to the grain-raising dis- 
tricts 1 The report of our State Board of Agriculture for 1869 (page 24), says: 

One of the most remarkable features connected with California agriculture, is the almost 
entire absence of vegetable gardens in the best agricultural districts. Farmers, whose tables, 
above all others, should and could be well supplied the year round with the greatest abund- 
ance of delicious vegetables, fresh each day from their own gardens, are notoriously the poor- 
est supplied with these luxuries of any other class of people in the State ; and, strange to say, 
what they do have, generally come from the vegetable dealers in the towns and cities, and 
are stale and uninviting. Vegetable peddlers buy their supplies in the towns and cities, and 
make their regular trips among the grain raisers in the country to sell them. This anoma- 
lous state of affairs is brought about by two causes — first, that the soil of our grain land is not 
so well adapted to the production of vegetables as grain, and next, to an indisposition on the 
part of the farmers themselves tc cultivate in the garden. Time to do so is certainly not 
wanting, for garden work could and should be done here in the Whiter and early spring, when 
the other work of the farm is slack. Half an acre of ground, properly prepared and judi- 
ciously cultivated in a variety of garden produce, would yield more real profit to the farmer 
than five times that amount sown to grain. It would employ his idle moments, stimulate 
him to useful experiments, and be the means of bringing up his boys to habits of industry, 
besides furnishing his table with a constant supply of health-producing luxuries, to which, 



APPENDIX 



55 



under the present system of management, it is a stranger. The man who cultivates a garden 
well, insensibly becomes a good and successful fanner, and he who neglects to cultivate any 
garden at all, just as insensibly, but surely, becomes a slovenly and unsugcessful farmer. 

It is very evident, therefore, that we want a more intelligent and industrious 
class of farmers than many of our present citizens, and that all such will be able 
to do far better than the most prosperous of those who thus violate every rule of 
agricultural economy. Upon the necessity for a more diversified agriculture to 
the proper development of the resources of California, and which is itself a suffi- 
cient hint to thoroughly-educated farmers of the prosperity that is here offered 
them, we quote again from the report above-mentioned (page n):. 

Probably no equal portion of the earth's surface is so well calculated, from its great 
variety of soils and climate, to sustain a diversified, and hence/profitable, agriculture, as Cal- 
ifornia, All the products of the temperate and many of those of the tropical climates, flourish 
here with equal luxuriance. Nature seems to have marked out this country as the special 
paradise of the agriculturists, and yet the great curse of our agriculture and the State is the 
sameness of production — the over production of a few agricultural products. It is a stigma 
upon the intelligence and enterprise of our farmers that very many of the common necessaries 
of life, and those, too, for the production of which our State is most peculiarly adapted, and 
which would yield the greatest profit to the producer, are constantly imported. The very 
money received by our fanners for their grain, sold at a low figure in consequence of over 
production, is, much of it, exported from the State to pay for these same necessaries con- 
sumed by themselves. It is a shameful and deplorable fact, that many of the naturally best 
grain-producing portions of our State have been cropped every year for from ten to fifteen 
years in succession, with grain, and in many cases with one single unvaried crop — wheat. 
The result has proved just what the farmers have time and again been told it would bring 
about — exhaustion of the soil. In many localities, where once the land yielded from forty to 
sixty bushels of wheat per acre, it now yields scarcely enough to pay for the labor of sowing 
and harvesting. What is still worse, many of these improvident grain farmers are disposing 
of their exhausted lands and moving to other sections to find a virgin soil, which they, ia 
tvm, will in like manner exhaust. 

Farms of this character, in good localities, possessing many advantages over 
lands more remote from the centers of business, and often with considerable 
improvements, such as buildings, fences, etc., upon them, can be bought at rates 
• that will make purchases highly profitable to thorough farmers, as with proper 
cultivation they will soon return to their original productive condition. The 
report quoted adds (pages 12, 13): 

What we want, above all things, to give us universal prosperity and constant and remu- 
nerative employment for all classes, is a diversified agriculture ; an agriculture so varied in 
its products and so constant in its operations that it will require about an equal amount of 
labor every month in the year ; an agriculture that will produce not only all that a dense pop- 
ulation would require for home consumption, but one that would furnish for export, products 
a thousand times more valuable than would be all the wheat our State could produce, if every 
acre of land within its borders, adapted to its cultivation, were to yield a hundred bushels a 
year. That nature designed California for an agriculture as diversified in its character as are 
the soils and climates of her thousands of valleys and innumerable mountain and hill-sides, 
and as valuable as the world has ever known, cannot be doubted. 

Grape Culture in California. 
The following is an extract from a report and memorial presented to the 
Senate of California by the Committee on Culture of the Grape, at its session in 



i« 



ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 



March, 1870. General Wilson, of Los Angeles, one of the oldest settlers, and 
the oldest and one of the most extensive grape raisers and wine makers in the 
State, was chairman of the committee: 

Perhaps no other country on the globe, and certainly no other portion of the American 
continent, is so well adapted, in all respects, to the successful and profitable cultivation oi 
grapes, as the State of California, which, indeed, seems as it were, to be the natural home of 
the grape, where it grows readily, from cuttings, upon the most arid hill-sides, and without 
irrigation. 

The culture of the grape gives more employment to labor than any other branch of farm- 
ing, and its development will tend greatly to the rapid peopling of our State with immigrants 
from among the honest, industrious and moral, natives of the wine-growing districts of Eu- 
rope. ^ 

To the immigrant who comes to California without means, with the expectation of a 
dependence upon farm labor for support, the districts devoted solely to the culture of the 
cereals offer small inducements; for, while the demand for labor is comparatively great and 
the pay liberal for a short period during the rush of gathering and harvesting the crop, it is 
succeeded by a long interval of inaction, when there is little or no need of hired labor, and 
the employee is turned adrift, perhaps to suffer from want before another job offers; besides, 
in our country, where the use of labor-saving machinery in agriculture is so universal, the 
demand for manual labor is comparatively small, and is decreasing every year. This is not 
the case in vine culture; the careful planting and annual pruning of the vines, and the 
gathering of the ripened fruit, can only be done by the employment of human hands. 

The growing of the grape is not in conflict with any other branch of agricultural indus- 
try, but can be made auxiliary to nearly all other kinds of farm labor, as for example: if you 
raise grain, your seeding is over before the labor of pruning the vine commences, and at the 
time of grain harvest there is little or no work required in the vineyard; and if the cultiva- 
tion of the mulberry and feeding the silkwoum should prove a success in California, its prose- 
cution will present no conflict with the vintage work. And in a country blessed with so 
genial a climate and fruitful a soil as California, where all these several branches of agricul- 
tural industry — grain growing, stock raising, vine culture, and rearing the silkworm — can suc- 
cessfully be blended together and practiced in the same district, skilled and willitog labor 
can find an abundant field, with continuous employment, at remunerative wages the year 
round. 

The following is also an extract from a report by the same committee^'made 
earlier in the same session, in February, 1870: . "". 

Our vintners have no motive for adulteration. The crop is always good; there is no lack 
of legitimate material; grapes are abundant every year. It is not with us as with European 
vine growers. There, one good, full crop, safely harvested, in five years, is a fair average 
for the last half century ; while there has been no single year in which the grape crop haa 
been a failure in California, since the introduction of viniculture here in seventeen hundred 
and forty — now more than a century and a quarter. Still further : while the European crop 
is always subject to rains, at the season of gathering, producing mold and rot in the berries, 
which transmit their offensive qualities through every stage of the products, California vine 
growers enjoy an entire immunity from this evil, and hence can regularly and certainly pro- 
duce a purer wine or brandy than is possible in the other case. 

' Summing up on this point, an experienced and intelligent Hungarian vine grower, after 
extensive investigations in our State, says: " Of all the vinegrowing countries in Europe, not 
one possesses the advantages of California; and I am satisfied that even if the separate advan- 
tages of these countries could be combined in one, it would still be surpassed by California 
when her resources shall be fully developed. Nowhere in France, the Netherlands, Holland, 
Rhenish Prussia, Bavaria, Nassau, Baden, Switzerland, Spain, Italy or any other country. 



APPENDIX. 



57 



can be found wines more noble and generous than this young State- on the Pacific is capable 
of producing. Nor has she ever been anywhere equaled in the amount of her vintage per 
acre, or the annual certainty of her crop. 

Raisins. 

The State Agricultural Society, in their report for 1868 (pages 15 and 16), 
also say: 

We have frequently called the attention of our people to the cultivation of this fruit, 
and pointed out the peculiar advantages our climate offers, not only for the growing of the 
grape but curing of the raisin. Experiments in many portions of the State, on a small scale,, 
have proved the correctness of our views, and have also, in our opinion, shown that the 
industry could be so managed as to be very profitable. The importation of raisins into our 
State is about fifty thousand boxes a year, at a cost of from one hundred and seventy-five 
thousand dollars to two hundred thousand dollars. The importations of the United States 
average about one million five hundred thousand dollars in value. The process of making 
raisins is as simple as drying apples or any other fruit. When the grapes are thoroughly 
ripe they are picked and spread on tables, or on the ground, cleaned and prepared for that 
purpose. Two or three weeks exposure to the sun, and turning once or twice, perfects the 
process, and the raisins are ready for boxing and market. The black Corinth Grape flour- 
ishes in our climate as well as any other variety, and the Zante Currant has been made from 
it to some extent and of very superior quality. This is a most useful and delicious fruit, 
and its general introduction and cultivation would be a great acquisition to the fruit product 
of the State. 

The Foothills and G-rape Growing. 

The Grass Valley " Union," of May 10th, 1870, says: " ; ( 

When a wine maker of Europe imagines a country exactly adapted to the wine growing 
business, the picture in his mind's eye is a faithful representation of the foothills of Califor- 
nia. He, in his dreams, sees hillsides of red and rocky soil, in a metamorphic or volcanic 
region, where there are seams in the rocks, through which the vine roots can pierce to find 
what moisture is needed for the grape, and in which moisture so derived and pumped up are 
dissolved the elements so necessary to the flavor of wine, as well as to the growth of the 
grape. The very lands desired, the foothills furnish in abundance, and, moreover, the lands 
here have proved in every instance where trial has been made, the European wine maker's 
dream the truth, when he described this country. The foothills do grow good grapes and do 
make the best of wines, and the foothills are to be the first wine-making country of the world* 
in excellence. 

The European wine-maker describes also the climate of our foothills, when he pictures to 
himself the country he would wish for his business. He wants a dry climate, for he knows 
that blight and mildew affect the vine in climates subject to rains ; summer showers wash 
from the skin of the grape the sugar which exudes, and which is essential to wine making, 
being a basis for alcohol ; grapes ripen slowly and imperfectly in climates liable to rains, and 
the vine needs no such showers for its growth. The experienced wine maker wants no sur- 
face water on his vines, because it causes his grapes to grow too watery and insipid. In Cal- 
Kbmia, we have the desired climate. No rains in much of thegrowing season of the Vine, and 
none in the ripening time of the grape. Blight and mildew are unknown among us, so 
entirely unknown that we can spare sulphur, the remedy for such vine diseases, to be shipped 
to the rainy climates of the East. In short, the foothills of California make a perfect country 
for grape growing and wine making. 

With such adaptability to the production of an article for which there is an universal 
demand, and an article which such few countries can pretend to produce, there is no doubt 
of the ulimate greatness of the foothills of California. It will soon be demonstrated that 
money can be made by manufacturing wine at twenty cents a gallon, and at that small price 



$8 ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 

there is more gold now ready to be taken out of the ground through the vine, than has been 
hitherto extracted by the pan, roeker, long-tom, sluices, arastras, and stamps of the miners. 
Then, too, our vines will make and keep a population, the keeping part gold has not done. 
But the vineyard business is in the future — let us hope the near future. 

In this part of the region of which we speak, lands held by the Central Pacific Railroad 
are sold at two dollars and fifty cents per acre, and on five years' time. In the respect of pay- 
ment, the railroad is more liberal than the Government. United States lands ars two dollars 
and fifty cents per acre, in greenbacks, with cash terms. 

The Sugar Beet. 
Among the new products to the cultivation of ^which the soil and climate 
<of California are peculiarly adapted, is that of beet sugar. The report of the 
State Agricultural Society for 1868-9 (page 14), says: 

California imports annually about thirty million pounds of sugar and about five hundred 
■thousand gallons of molasses. The sugar costs our people about four million five hundred 
thousand dollars, in gold ; the molasses, two hundred and fifty-thousand dollars, in all 
feur million seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. This amount of gold is shipped from 
the State annually to pay for these two articles. On the sugar we pay an import duty of 
an average of four cents per pound, equal to one million two hundred thousand dollars ; on 
the molasses we pay a duty of about five cents per gallon, equal to twenty -five thousand dol- 
lars ; making our annual duty on sugar and molasses, one million seven hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars. 

The foregoing statement is sufficient to show how great are the inducements 
to farmers to settle in this State, and make the extensive culture of the sugar 
beet a leading branch of their business. No special tax is here levied upon the 
production, as is the case in Europe. It is a business in which competition is 
never injurious or to be feared, since the demand for the manufactured article 
is unlimited, and the consumers at our doors. Capitalists have offered to erect 
the mills and apparatus for sugar manufacture wherever farmers will stipulate 
to devote a sufficient breadth of land to the beet culture to justify the necessary 
investment. There is room for an unlimited number of co-operative enterprises 
of this character. Lands of the character required for this culture, and posses- 
sing all the requisite facilities, can be obtained along our navigable rivers and 
railroad routes at very moderate prices. 

The sugar beet has been successfully raised in many parts of California. 
Careful experiments have demonstrated that the soil is admirably adapted to its 
culture, the yield remarkably heavy, and that the beets contain a much larger 
percentage of sugar than those raised in France, Belgium and other countries 
in which the business of beet-sugar making is carried on extensively and with 
large profits. The length of our summers also permits the beets to mature 
more perfectly than where their growth is interrupted by frosts. They may be 
allowed to remain in the ground for an indefinite time without injury or neces- 
sity for protection of any kind, as there is no frost to be feared. They may be 
stored without danger of rotting. The dry weather and warmth of the Sun is 
also sufficient to render the drying of the beet, when sliced, a simple and easy 
matter, without the use of fuel, so that the sugar may be much more cheaply 
concentrated than is possible elsewhere. These advantages have commenced to 



APPENDIX 



59 



attract the attention of enterprising men, and two companies have been formed 
to carry on the business. One of these is located at Sacramento, the other in 
vicinity of Alvarado, in Alameda County. The latter company are already 
building an extensive mill, of sufficient capacity to work into sugar fifty tons of 
beets per day. Messrs. Otto and Klind, formerly engaged in this business in 
Germany, and subsequently in Minnesota, and a Mr. Bonesteel, are the- man- 
agers. The~ company at Sacramento are also making their arrangements for 
engaging largely in the business. Mr. Wadsworth, who studied the business in 
Europe, is their manager . 

■ ■ ■•■■■< ■■/.-', Flax and Hemp, 

Another branch of agriculture to which the State of California is peculiarly 
adapted, and which in other States and foreign countries affords profitable 
employment to thousands of farmers and operatives and large amounts of 
capital in the manufacture of the raw product, is the culture of flax and hemp. 
On this subject the last report above quoted (page 18) says: 

We would call the attention of our farmers to the cultivation of flax and hemp. Both 
these plants are natives of our State, and experiments in their cultivation show that they may 
both be very successfully cultivated in the rich alluvial soils of all our river bottoms and val- 
leys. Formerly, there being no factories here for working up the flax seed, or for converting 
the fibers of these plants into cloth, there was no market and no inducement for engaging in 
this branch of agriculture. Now, there is a market for both seed and straw. The oil factory 
in San Francisco is using all the flax seed produced in this State, and importing largely to keep 
the factory running. The cultivation of flax for the seed alone would prove much more 
remunerative than wheat or barley on our river bottoms. It may be sown after the water of 
the river has subsided, and mature well. An acre of ground will produce, on an average, 
two thousand pounds of seed, which is worth four cents a pound, giving eighty dollars as the 
product per acre for seed alone. The yield of straw will be from two to three tons per acre. 
This, in the Alantic States, is worth from twenty dollars to thirty dollars per ton. The kn- 
mense demand for bags and bagging material on this coast, estimated at not less than one 
million dollars in value annually, has induced some of our woolen factories and the cotton 
f&ctory to turn their attention to the manufacture of burlaps and other bagging material from 
flax and hemp straw, and the latter is now offering twenty dollars per ton for the straw of 
the farmer. At these prices, then, land may be made to yield at the rate of over one hundred 
dollars per acre. This branch of agriculture has been sadly neglected. 

Castor Oil Bean. 
On the culture of this plant, the report above mentioned (page 19) says: 
The soil and climate of our State is peculiarly adapted to the growth of the castor bean. 
The plant here, in good localities, becomes a perennial tree, bearing its annual crop like our 
fruit trees, and the average yield per acre, by the actual experiment of the few who have 
engaged in the business, is from one thousand five hundred to two thousand pounds per 
annum. The oil factory at San Francisco pays for the beans, four cents per pound, making 
the crop average from sixty dollars to eighty dollars per acre. The small bean only should 
be planted. The tree of the large bean grows too large for gathering the crop, and is not so 
good a bearer. 

Hop Culture. 
Hops have yielded well wherever planted in California. They have been 
extensively tested and raised succssfully in the counties of Alameda, Amador, 



So ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 

Butte, Colusa, El Dorado, Los Angeles, Mendocino, Mono, Monterey, Napa, 
Placer, Sacramento, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa 
Cruz, Shasta, Sonoma, Sutter, Tuolumne, Yolo and Yuba. The largest yields 
shown by the reports of the County Assessors to the Surveyor-General, in 1869, 
were as follows : Sacramento, two hundred and seventy-seven acres, three hundred 
and ten thousand eight hundred and eighty pounds; Mendocino, one hundred 
acres, one hundred and twenty thousand pounds; Sonoma, fifty and three-fourths 
acres, twenty-six thousand nine hundred and fifty pounds; Yolo, thirty-four acres, 
thirty- four thousand pounds; Yuba, twenty-nine acres, twenty- four thousand five 
hundred pounds. The total yield reported for the year 1868, was stated in said 
report at six hundred and thirty-two thousand and sixty-eight pounds, the pro- 
duct of seven hundred and sixty-five and three-fourth acres, much of which was 
experimental. The absence of rain during the season, when the vines are in 
blossom, preserves the entire strength of the flower. The Assessor of Monterey 
County, in his annual report for 1869, says, concerning his county: 4 

The culture of hops has lately been undertaken. Fifty-five acres have yielded, in eight- 
een hundred and sixty-eight, twelve thousand five hundred and eighty pounds. A tract oi 
land of thirty-five acres, at the foot of the hills on the east side of the Salinas Plain, and in 
the neighborhood of the village of Natividad, has yielded eight thousand pounds. The 
yield of eighteen hundred and sixty -nine promises to be handsome. Seventy -two acres have 
bsen planted with hops, 

California hops have taken the highest premiums when exhibited abroad, 
and, when grown upon suitable- soil, are far superior to those used in other 
countries. 

Chile Clover or Alfalfa. 

Concerning this valuable grass or forage plant, the same report (page 25) 



This clover seems to be especially adapted to the peculiarities and wants of the country. 
It has been thoroughly tested for years, both on the rich alluvial soils of the river borders 
and on the higher lands of the plains, and has proved satisfactorily successful in all locali- 
ties. Its roots strike deep into the soil, in the form of what we generally term tap roots. On 
the borders of some of our rivers they have been known to penetrate seventeen feet below the 
surface. On the uplands, deeply plowed and well tilled, they will find constant moisture 
sufficient to produce rapid growth the year round. For hay, this clover, when cut in proper 
condition, when in bloom, is of good quality for stock of all kinds, and especially for milch 
eows. 

It will produce three and four crops a year — say in April, May, June and July — average 
ing from a ton to a ton and a half at each cutting. After the last crop it continues to grow 
rapidly, and furnishes a very large amount of feed for stock, as pasturage, the balance of the 
year. "We have the testimony of good dairymen, to the effect that cows taken from the 
native grasses, and pastured on fields of Chile Clover, will increase in the product of milk 
and butter, or cheese, from sixty to seventy per cent. Also, that one acre of land, well 
seeded with it, will produce more pasturage in a year than ten acres of the same quality of 
land will in the native grasses. 



APPENDIX. 6l 

Bice Culture. 
Concerning this product the State Agricultural Society, in their report above 
quoted (page 16) say: 

It is one of the strangest things in the history of California agriculture, that the cultiva- 
tion of this grain has never been undertaken. We have thousands of acres of land, on the 
lower Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, eminently suited in every respect to the success- 
ful and profitable culture of rice. Probably the best explanation for the neglect of this pro- 
duct is found in the general and chronic indisposition of the American — and particularly the 
Californian — agriculturists to step out of the old grooves and routines of cultivation learned 
by the examples of their fathers. 

We import and consume from forty million to fifty million pounds of rice annually, in 
our State, at a cost of about two million five hundred thousand dollars. We have a large 
population among us well calculated for this industry, and many of them are already skilled 
in its management. By directing their labor into this channel it might be made to contribute 
very materially to the wealth of the State, while, at the same time, the success of the enter- 
prise would tend to stimulate the reclamation and utilization of the hundreds of thousands 
of acres of tule lands now comparatively worthless. 

There is also a variety of rice grown upon uplands, which could doubtless 
be cultivated with profit in many portions of the State. 

A long list of other agricultural products, fruits, etc., could be mentioned, 
but it is sufficient to say that whatever can be grown in any part of the Eastern 
States or Europe, and many of the products of the semi-tropical regions, can be 
successfully, and with labor cheaper than at present — as it will be when our agri- 
culture is more varied, employment regular and engagements made by the year 
instead of by the day — profitably grown in California, since our climate is so 
diversified, and our soil so generous to the husbandman. Upon this point it 
is only necessary to refer to any standard work on California, 

Picture of a California Home. 
A correspondent of the " Woman's Pacific Coast Journal," writing from 
Yuba County, gives the following picture of one of the many similar homes that 
are to be seen in that vicinity. The scene is in the foothills, is not overdrawn, 
and there are thousands of acres of hunoccupied Government lands in the State 
which can be obtained and easily brought to the state of perfection that char- 
acterizes the pretty home which the correspondent graphically describes : 

Fifty-five miles from the bay window where we write, the snow-covered heads of the 
Sierra Nevada mountains stand out clear and sharp against the eastern sky. Here in the 
foothills, fuchias, geraniums and roses, are bright with half-open buds and blossoms. In the 
closet are crisp, hard quinces of last year's crop ; along the borders the quince trees are thickly 
•covered with blossoms. The purest crystal waters come leaping from the hearts of the hills, 
and all the meadows laugh with the gayest-colored flowers. Humming-birds and swallows, 
calla-lilies and verbenas, orange trees, lime trees, lemon trees, are all mixed up in sweet 
confusion. Yonder are olive trees in perpetual green, and a little further, English walnuts 
and grape-vines, with leaf-buds fast swelling. The apple trees do not believe summer time 
has come, and patiently bide their time and season, but peaches and apricots and nectarines 
are tossing to the breeze sweetest perfumes. Fig trees generously give three crops a year, 
-and in these early March days have pushed out all along their naked arms hundreds of figs as 



62 ALL ABOUT CALIFORNIA. 

large as an infant's thumb. Pomegranates, almonds and Newtown pippins, grow in the same 
border as peaceably as if they had been life-long friends. Oleanders and sweet cassia trees 
are from ten to twenty feet high, out of doors all winter. Down the garden walk I see 
blackberries, raspberries, currants and gooseberries. There, also, are half-grown strawber- 
ries.. In the vegetable gardens the beet, carrot and cabbage, do not seem to know when sum- 
mer leaves off, and so they keep on growing all the year, until surprised out of all propriety 
by being rudely pulled and thrust into market. 

Down the hill slope there is one acre of alfalfa and red clover six inches high which 
gives three crops, and furnishes an average of eight tons a year of sweet and tender hay. 
Around these boulder rocks are grape vines that every year rejoice in ten-pound clusters of 
perfect fruit. A little further along, against the fence, is a seven-year old vine, three feet 
high, with three or four short arms from its head, that annually bears one hundred pounds of 
grapes. There is a patch of raisin grapes, three years old, the old wood, three inches in 
diameter, headed three feet from the ground, with triangular frames around them to support 
the fruit. After the children and chickens and wasps had picked at them last year, they 
yielded ten pounds each of perfectly luscious dried raisins. The quality and quantity of 
pears, plums and cherries, is to us so marvelous we dare not risk our reputation for truthful- 
ness by repeating the items as they were told to us. Around the east porch is a solitary rose- 
bush, trained in festoons, reaching over seventy feet — at that point cut back, because it was 
encroaching upon the rights of its neighbor, who was" ambitious to share the honor of crown- 
ing this sweetest of mouC<ain homes with buds and blossoms. This, dear reader, is a pic- 
ture of the thousands of homes that it is possible, with a little perseverance and wisely- 
directed industry, to build up in this sunny clime. The owners of this paradise are working 
people. The wife is equally at home in the kitchen, nursery or chicken . yard, at the piano 
or in the parlor. The husband is the son of a Puritan sire, and a pioneer Californian, who, 
in addition to his daily work, has used the eaily morning hours to transform this rocky hilL 
side into a fruitful flower-crowned paradise. • 

Surveys in the Foothills. 

Until recently, very few public surveys had been made in the foothills of the 
Sierra Nevada. Miners, stockraisers and agriculturists, alike entered upon and 
occupied them and made such improvements as they chose, with the full per- 
mission of the government, but without acquiring titles to the land they used. 
The lands were not surveyed, because it was not the wish of the miners who 
formed the great bulk of the population, that the government should sell the 
lands, and the government acceded to their wish. Within a few years past the 
policy of the government has been changed in this respect, and now the surveys 
are being extended over the foothills and the mining regions. As fast as this is 
accomplished, the miners are able to obtain absolute titles for their quartz and 
placer-mining claims, and farmers, stockraisers, vineyard planters and lumber- 
men, to purchase the land they require. 

The Hon. Sherman Day, United States Surveyor-General for California, in 
his report to the Land Department for the year ending June 30th, 1869, says: 

Of the mineral lands, only two townships were subdivided last year, both in Nevada 
County. * * * I am now letting a series of contracts extending along 

the mining foothills from Mariposa County to Shasta, for the purpose of enabling the agricul- 
turists of those regions to secure permanent titles to their homes, and to enable the deputy 
surveyors to locate the surveys of mining claims with reference to the subdivisions of the 
public lands. * * * Contracts were let early in the spring for the sub- 

division of nineteen townships or fractional townships, in Tehama and Shasta counties, be- 



APPENDIX. 63 

tween the fifth and seventh parallels north. * * • These lands will 

fall within the Oregon and California railroad belt. Three additional townships have been 
subdivided within the limits of the Central Pacific Railroad grant, and only a few more now 
remain to be surveyed within those limits. ***** 

A contract has been taken to subdivide the foothills lying south of the Merced River, and 
west and south of the Mariposa Rancho. Another has been taken for the . subdivision of 
lands between the Stanislaus and Calaveras rivers, comprising the copper-mining region. 
Continuing still further northwest, two other contracts have been let for subdividing the mine- 
ral lands of Amador County, east of lone Valley, and reaching up into the southern portion 
of El Dorado County, comprising many rich gold mines, and some of copper. 

These surveys will cover some of the best vineyard land in the State, and many small 
valleys and rolling hills, capable of cultivation with wheat or barley, covered with scattered 
groves of oak or nut pine, and well adapted for dairy farms, gardens, orchards, and the rais- 
ing of cattle, sheep and hogs. * * * I doubt not that in a few years 
the wheat and barley mines, the potato mines, the grape mines, the peach, plum and pear 
mines, the olive -oil mines, the butter and cheese mines and the silk mines, will be found to 
be paying better dividends than the mines of gold and copper of the same region. Neverthe- 
less, they can both go hand in hand to help each other if sound titles attract labor and 
capital. 

Two contracts have been let for townshiping and subdividing among the valleys of Plu- 
mas County, comprising also some timber lands. Two contracts have been let among the 
table lands of San Luis Obispo County, which are principally adapted to grazing purposes. 
y Two fractional townships have also been let for subdivision south of San Diego, adjoining. 
tiie boundary line and the ocean. 

From inquiry at his office in San Francisco, we learn that a large part of the 
work in the contracts mentioned, has been completed, so that settlers can now 
enter these lands which are not strictly mineral, for agricultural purposes, under 
the homestead and pre-emption laws. Besides these, a large number of other 
contracts for surveys, in the same districts, have been let during the past twelve 
months, the work upon which is progressing and being rapidly completed. 

Colonies 
Whenever farmers and others intending to come to settle in California are 
acquainted with each other, if possible, it is advisable that they shall move 
together and settle in the same locality. The advantages of this course are 
numerous and important. By moving at the same time, reduced rates of fares 
and freights can often be obtained from railroad, steamship and transportation 
companies; lands can be purchased in large tracts at wholesale prices ; teams 
and expensive farming implements can be purchased jointly, and, by settling 
together, much expensive fencing can often be avoided ; a neighborhood grows 
up at once ; a certain and rapid enhancement in the value of the land purchased 
is secured ; schools, churches, post and express offices, stores, good roads and, 
eventually, railroads and all the other conveniences of life enjoyed in older com- 
munities are created far earlier than is possible where one settler is located at a 
time and the growth of population is slow and precarious. By writing to the 
"California Immigrant Union," California Street, San Francisco, or its 

agents at New York, Baltimore, Chicago or Omaha, transportation can always 
be secured at the lowest possible rates. 



JOJ, ABOUT CALIFORNIA* 



The following statistics, though not strictly accurate or complete, are mostly 
from the latest official reports of the State Surveyor-General and the Superin- 
tendent of Public Instruction, and will be of interest to the reader t 



Counties. 



Alameda 

Alpine 

Amador 

Butte 

Calaveras 

Colusa 

Contra Costa 

Del Norte 

El Dorado 

Fresno 

Humboldt 

Inyo 

Kern 

Klamath 

Lake 

Lassen 

Los Angeles 

Marin 

Mariposa 

Mendocino 

Merced 

Mono 

Monterey , 

Napa i . 

Nevada 

Placer 

Plumas 

Sacramento 

San Bernardino. 

San Diego 

San Francisco... 

San Joaquin 

San Luis Obispo . 
San Mateo 

Santa Barbara.. 

Santa Clara 

Santa Cruz 

Shasta 

Sierra ; 

Siskiyou 

Solano ......... 

Sonoma 

Stanislaus 

Sutter 

Tehama 

Trinity 

Tulare 

Tuolumne 

Yolo 

Yuba 






■P &W 

•-< w a 
COCn *\ 



■ ft 
' >-t 

24,218 

686 

9,600 

8,896 
6,171 

8,468 

2,H3 

10,326 

6,33 6 
6,109 

i,95 
■2,335 
1,678 
2,873 

i,3 

15,100 

6,775 
4,57 2 
7,025 
2,810 

43* 

9,898 

7,155 

I9,i34 

",376 

4,49° 
27,102 

3,934! 

4,789 

150,272 

21,064 
4,786 
6,648 
7,788 

25,269 
8,782 

5,337 
4,191 
6,851 
16,396 
19,679 
6,510 
4,550 
3,597 
3, r 73 
3,782 
8,171 

9,9i. 
10,865 



Totals. 



H 



8-2 



00^3 

ON C 



4,440 

86 
1,872 
2,099 
2,193 

939 
2,297 

246 

2,348 
768 

1,395 

78 

3°4 

210 

760 

347 
4,424 
1,110 

799 
1,814 

738 

144 

2,264 

1,727 

3,995 
2,109 

598 
5,036 
i,353 

700 

25,785 
4,304 
i,i45 
i,55i 
1,748 

5: 
2,403 
987 
1,067 
1,440 

3, 3 33 
5,36i 
1,305 
1,166 
768 
448 
1,227 

1,839 
1,998 
2,127 



556.613 112,743 



32, 



62 
4 
32 
40 
28 
17 
35 
5 

41 
10 
20 
3 
4 
3 

14 
7 

28 
20 
10 

36 

II 

6 

18 
28 

5 2 
45 
iS 

65 

15 

4 

40 

73 
14 
19 
11 

75 
35 
26 

23 
33 
36 
97 
25 
32 
15 
10 
21 
17 
35 
36 



512,000 
972,800 
332,800 
1,344,000 
512,000 
1,640,000 
500,000 
960,000 
1,280,000 
4,992,000 
1,800,000 
3,041,080 
1,500,000 
1,150,000 
576,000 
2,880,000 
2,000,000 
400,000 
1,164,800 
2,000,000 
1,075,200 
3,840,000 
2,500,000 
450,000 
704,000 
716,800 
1,280,000 
691,200 
10,000,000 
8,500,000 
26,861 
896,000 
1,500,000 
154,980 
1,500,000 
700,000 
320,000 
2,640,000 
640,000 
5,300,000 
538,000 
850,000 
798,720 
384,000 
1,920,000 
1,530,000 
8,320,000 
1,344,000 
461,000 
657,000 



ft- « 

TO P- 

,9> o 



1354 120,947,840 



2~c: reported. 



97,383 
6,000 

57,274 
164,902 

45,9H 
135,350 

83,210 

5,265 

103,444 

11,930 

30,"5 
5,000 
5,000 
4,111 

12,009 

24,855 
23,200 

202,146 
23,440 

139,000 

135,000 
11,720 

124,550 
99,665 
55,ooo 

77,875 

5i,i55 

231,609 

18,550 
8,000 

14,000 
270,000 

61,083 
150,000 

30,553 
476,547 

51,092 



129,039 

700 

17,855 

35,658 

11,658 

69,745 
69,948 

i,354 
12,464 
14,865 
12,976 



2,398 

i,525 

7,5oo 

5,838 

35,6oo 

18,240 

4,800 

54,ooo 

58,000 

3,879 

97,874 

40,795 

25,000 

22,000 

2,500 

46,757 

23,850 

16,000 

2,000 

200,000 

9,53° 
80,000 
21,186 

147,120 
17,787 



18,132 

75,200 

212,647 

510,782 

110,000 

134,870 

102,040 

10,370 

16,681 

46,025 

123,773 
57,66o 



4,463,127 



2,140 

27,984 

202,956 

220,420 

250,000 

74,547 
38,000 

3,947 
83,111 

9,169 

80,701 
29,788 



$10,011,561 00 

333,000 00 

1,737,458 00 

2,614,389 00 

1,260,085 00 

3,912,490 00 

3,335,080 00 

515,67400 

1,820,945 00 

2,00*7,108 00 

1,691,557 00 

237,167 00 

1,346,500 00 

352,768 00 

648,416 00 

518,555 00 

3,764,045 00 

2,717,603 00 

1,093,102 00 

2,042,924 00 

2,278,877 00 

358,853 00 

2,125,237 55 

3,924,885 00 

5,986,232 00 

4,749,289 00 

1,201,830 00 

10,574,364 00 

624,983 00 

* 

107,640,646 00 
7,601,500 00 

i,58o,439 75 
1,512,72000 
1,428,197 00 
",7 6 5, I 77oo 
2,441,392 03 

2,246,032 00 
1,950,318 00 
4,374,13400 
6,138,836 00 
1,609,12400 
1,887,486 00 
1,880,73600 
690,394 00 
4,170,87000 
1,177,24900 
4,127,45700 
4,066,935 00 



2,343,204 



$242,074,520 30 



CALIFORNIA, OREGON, 



INTERVENING COUNTRY, 



AS SEEN BY ONE WHO WENT TO SEEK INFORMATION WITH A VIEW 

TO EMIGRATION. 



By J. F. SIMMONS, 

Sardis, Mississippi. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Sardis, Mississippi, Maich, 1S75. 
Hon. J. F. Simmons. 

Dear Sir: Having learned of your return from your tour of inspection of 
the " Great West," and particularly of those sections lying along the Pacific 
Slope, and being desirous of getting a reliable account of the climates, soils, 
products, scenery, general resources, advantages and attractions of those distant 
States, we respectfully request that you will, at your earliest convenience (time 
and place to be named by yourself), deliver a lecture or series of lectures, com- 
prising the results of your investigation of those interesting sections of our 
country. 

Very Respectfully, 

J. C. Duval, 
B. W. Morris, 
J. N. Stitt, 
M. T. Myers, 
J. F. Lavender, 
E. F. Williams, 
I. H. Gunter, 
W. W. Miller, 
A. I. Ellis, 



S. G. Spain, 
W. D. FIeflin, 
W. H. Wall, 

WlH. T. OUTTEN, 

G. Clarke, 

J. R. Buchanan, 

W. T. McCracken, 

C. W. Duval, 

G. W. Ballentine, 



G. H. Jenkins, 
J. P. Ryan, 
J. E. Carlton, 
W. E. Conner, 
Jeff. J. Meek, 
W. J. Richards, 
W. M. Marshall, 

W. D. ROSBOROUGH, 

W. T. Dye, 

and others. 



The following pages will be found to contain the information, and I deem 
it a more appropriate and satisfactory mode of meeting the wishes of my friends 
expressed in the foregoing letter, and at the same time replying to many letters 
I have received from others. 

J. F. Simmons. 




A TRIP TO CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 



At noon on the 23d of July, 1874-, in company with Mr. William M. 
Crawley and my nephew, Mr. Walter P. Crump, I went aboard the cars of the 
Mississippi and Tennessee Railroad, at Sardis, Mississippi, for Memphis, Ten- 
nessee, en route for the Pacific States, on a tour of observation and investigation. 
Previous to my going, a number of my friends and acquaintances had requested 
me to look into the different modes of conveyance, the expense attendant there- 
on, the intervening country and its inducements'and advantages to emigrants, and 
the healthfulness of the climates, and a hundred et ceteras, and especially to ob- 
tain and bring back, or write, all the information I could about California and 
Oregon. At first, a meeting was proposed to be held, but, as we all had prop- 
erty to sell in case we decided on emigrating, it was deemed advisable not to 
give publicity to the matter, and I objected to a meeting. . Subsequently, in 
conversation with a friend in Memphis, of more experience in such matters 
perhaps, than myself,- 1 was advised to let the meeting be held privately or pub- 
licly as might be preferred, and the resolutions that might be adopted certified, 
and they would assist me greatly in procuring information, especially if pub- 
lished there, which no one in the absence of such action would volunteer to 
furnish me. Such a meeting was held, and at my own suggestion it was not 
made public, the resolutions signed by Rev. Thomas W. Dye, Chairman, Mr. 
Sidney G. Spain, Secretary,, and certified under his official seal by the late Capt. 
John C. Harrison, a Clerk of the Chancery Court of the County; and while I 
am satisfied that my friend's advice was wise, and that the aetion of the meeting 
aided me no little in gaining desirable and important information, yet it, at the 
same time, caused me to incur a good deal more expense than I should other- 
wise have done, for, under a sense of the obligation thus imposed upon, and 
accepted by me, I visited localities in which I felt no personal interest, and 
about which I did not feel sufficient curiosity to induce me to give either the 
time or the money to the investigation. 

While in Oregon and California, • and much more numerously since my 
■eturn, letters reached me from friends in different portions of the South, even 
as far away as North Carolina, and North as far as New York, all desiring 
information as to the views which I should form or had formed; of the country. 



CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 



Some few of these letters I have responded to briefly, others I have endeav- 
ored to reply to through correspondence with different newspapers, but in this 
report I propose to reply only and explicitly to all, and at the same time, meet 
the wishes of those of my immediate neighbors who addressed me the letter 
appended at the head of this paper. 

Of my compagnons de voyage, I should state that Mr. Crawley was u-:' ad- 
vanced in consumption and very feeble, while Mr. Crump was, and had a iong 
time been, a great sufferer from dyspepsia. Both were a good deal "under 
the weather " and reduced in flesh, while my own weight on the day we started 
was down to about one hundred and seventeen pounds. These facts I deem it 
necessary to mention, in order to give full bearing to what will appear in a sub- 
sequent part of this report. 

Reaching Memphis we proceeded to the Elevator, and secured berths in 
the good steam packet "City of Chester," of the Memphis and St. Louis "An- 
chor Line " of Packets. Leaving Memphis at five o'clock p. m., we had a delight- 
ful trip to St. Louis, reaching there on Sunday morning. Fare from Memphis 
to St. Louis, seven-dollars, meals extra, or twelve dollars with meals. 

I had visited St. Louis before, but I knew that a day or two could be spent 
there very pleasantly if not profitably, by my younger companions, and we re- 
mained therefore till Monday night. To make close connection at Omaha 
with the overland train westward, one should leave' St. Louis on the morning 
train, but we took the night train, intending to stop over one night at Omaha, 
which we did, reaching there at five o'clock on Tuesday evening, and leaving 
on the Union Pacific westward bound train at 11.30 o'clock Wednesday morn- 
ing. We had purchased through tickets to San Francisco at St. Louis. First- 
class, one hundred and sixteen dollars; second-class eighty-eight dollars. Upon 
the former, a passenger is not limited as to time, and may stop whenever, 
wherever, and as long as he chooses, and has the privilege also of purchasing 
accommodations in the sleeping cars. On the second-class ticket, however, he is 
limited, by special contract, to eight days, and has but two days at his disposal, 
therefore, for stoppages; though not entitled to sleeping car accommodations, he 
travels in comfortable coaches attached to the express trains. Besides the rates 
mentioned above, which are for regular passenger trains, there is still another, 
or third rate, by the emigrant train, at fifty-five dollars and fifty cents ($55.50) 
from St. Louis to San Francisco. This latter is a mixed train from Omaha, and 
is four days longer on the trip than the passenger trains. The second-class cars 
are equally as comfortable as any of the cars on our Southern roads, and the 
only real difference between a first and second-class passage is, the privilege of 
all the first-class cars, including the sleeping and drawing-room palace coaches, 
and the indefinite extension of time on the ticket of the former. Whether 
' these privileges are full equivalents for the increased cost of the ticket, is a 
matter for the consideration of each individual passenger. It must be borne in^ 
mind, however, that the sleeping car is always an extra charge over and above 
the regular passage fare. 



CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 69 

Persons who desire to emigrate to California, in parties of from 20 to 50, 
ought to communicate directly with Mr. T. L. Kimball, General Passenger 
Agent of the Union Pacific Railroad, at Omaha, Nebraska, in order to avail 
themselves of special rates for excursionists; and those desiring copies of this 
book can obtain the same from him, or from the office of the California Immi- 
grant, Union, 328 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, California. Copies sent 
to amy address in the United States or Europe by applying as above stated. 

The trip to Omaha from St. Louis is both pleasant and interesting, but it 
was a station or two below Council Bluffs that we came up with the first, and I 
may as well add here, the last of the three-card-monte gambling fraternity, by 
whom we were annoyed on our route. These were the only drawbacks at all 
to the pleasantness of the ride; and as they left us at Council Bluffs, after appro- 
priate and firm rebuffs, we were troubled very little, and came to the deliberate 
conclusion that it is as much the* fault of the victim as the gambler, when a man 
is taken in and swindled by these devils that "go about as roaring lions seek- 
ing whom they may devour." I was particularly struck with the statement 
some time since, of James Ross, a Nevada gambler, better known as "Slim 
Jim." He says he has met with, and won money from all sorts on the cars, 
and among others a minister of the Gospel, from Oregon, who was on a leave- 
of-absence tour, provided with funds, and carrying a handsome and appropri- 
ately engraved gold watch, presented by his congregation. "Slim Jim" won 
the watch and nearly all the parson's money, and if there ever was an instance 
of a gambler's success being an appropriate cause of joy to religious people, I 
think this was it. 

My experience in traveling, satisfies me of the wisdom of the advice of 
the railroad officials, who are using every means to break up gambling on the 
cars: Have nothing to do with strangers who show an anxiety to thrust them- 
selves on your notice and acquaintance, and drink liquor with nobody. This 
advice, well followed, will guide you clear of gamblers. 

Since the date of my trip I am pleased to learn that the gamblers, finding 
their vocation gone, have " deserted " the line of the Pacific Roads, so that not 
a single "card sharp" is to be found now between Omaha and San Francisco. 

Omaha, the principal city of Nebraska, is on the west bank of the Missouri 
River, was formerly the capital of the State, is a place of considerable business, 
the eastern terminus of the great "Union Pacific Railroad," and withal a very 
handsome little city of twenty odd thousand inhabitants. I found a stoppage so 
pleasant going that I repeated it on my return, and I am well satisfied that it is 
a pleasant city to live in, though I can readily imagine, from its elevated posi- 
tion, that it is very cold in winter. I found it delightfully pleasant, however, 
both in July and September. 

On leaving Omaha we felt, for the first time, that we were actually en route 
for the Pacific Coast, and commenced our observations in good earnest. The 
Platte Valley, which we entered soon after leaving Omaha, and traveled through 
for the next twenty-four hours, is a beautiful level prairie country, as fertile as 



"]0 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

can well be imagined, as level as a plank floor, and almost as clear of timber, 
except on the river-banks, and when we entered and passed through, it was! 
perfectly rich and glowing in verdure. I never in my life had seen such corn,' 
and so much of it to the acre of ground, and my young companions both 
declared if we were to describe literally what we saw to our neighbors back in 
Mississippi, they would not believe us. There were five and six stalks of corn 
in each hill; the hills were, apparently to us, less than three feet apart, and every 
stalk seemed to be heavily laden with grain, and all was of a rich dark green, 
which betokened strength and substance. 

The second day from Omaha we passed through a less inviting, and app? 
rently less fertile country. Whether it is really less fertile, or only appears so 
because of the absence of agricultural enterprise and industry, I am unable to 
say, but, as I saw more antelope and other game on this part of the route than 
anywhere else, I am inclined to think both the spil and climate are well adapted 
to agriculture, since vegetation is so necessary to the propagation, not to say 
existence, of all herbivorous animals. On this day we had a view of the first 
snow we had seen since February, and as we struck the cold air on the high 
plains about Cheyenne, we found our overcoats quite conducive, not to say 
necessary to comfort. 

Sherman, five hundred and forty miles from Omaha, is the highest point 
on the entire route, being eight thousand two hundred and forty-two feet above 
San Francisco. All along the line we noticed miles upon miles of snow-fences, 
these having been found amply sufficient to protect the track from the snows of 
winter. 

Crossing the Rocky Mountains on Thursday evening, we reached Ogden 
about noon on Friday, having passed through some .as grand scenery as the 
mind can well conceive of, particularly on the last two or three hundred miles 
of the route. 

Between Omaha and Ogden the Union Pacific Railroad Company own 
about twelve million acres of unimproved lands, lying from five to ten miles 
from the Railway, which they offer to actual settlers at such low figures and on 
such indulgent terms, combined with Railroad facilities and privileges, that no 
man of any energy at all can fail to secure and pay for a farm if he be so dis- 
posed. Persons desiring particular information on this subject can obtain it by 
writing to the Land Commissioner of the Railroad Company, Mr. O. F. Davis, 
at Omaha, Nebraska. 

At Ogden we changed cars and remained an hour or more, affording 
ample time for dinner, while baggage, mail, and expressage were being trans- 
ferred from the Union- to the Central Pacific train. Here a branch road 
diverges to Salt Lake City (as one does at Cheyenne to Denver, which I omitted 
to mention in in its place), but I did not deviate from the direct route, and 
know nothing of the great centre of Mormonism. Our train took us around 
the head of Great Salt Lake and we had a pretty good view of it, though of 
course the main body of the lake lay far beyond the stretch of our vision to the 



CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 7 1 

south, and night closed in upon us as we rounded the point and left the glassy 
sheet of water behind. 

The main line of the Central Pacific is nearly one hundred and fifty 
miles shorter than the Union (or as it is commonly abbreviated, the "U. P."), 
though the Central Pacific with its branches has a greater mileage than the 
Union Pacific, traverses a mountainous country almost the entire distance from 
Ogden to the Sacramento Valley, excepl the desert, through the most of which 
we traveled during night. The scenery, and particularly that portion in the 
Sierra Nevada Mountains, is grand beyond my powers of description, and tour- 
ists and pleasure-seekers need not go to Europe in search of the grand and 
sublime in nature, for California, and Oregon as I subsequently found, have 
such as I do not think, from what I have read of European scenery, can be 
surpassed, if equaled, upon the globe. But as I was not on a hunt for pleasure 
and romance, I need not dwell upon the beauties and sublimities of scenery in 
which the Pacific States abound. 

We reached San Francisco on Sunday night, the second of August, and 
on going out upon the streets after breakfast the next morning, we met a stiff 
cold breeze v r hich was unpleasant in the extreme, and almost every lady and 
gentleman we saw was arrayed in winter clothing, which to us Mississippians 
was not only surprising but astonishing, for we well remembered how hot and 
sultry the weather was when we left home, and irideed when we left St. Louis, 
one week previous. I was informed that August was the most disagreeable 
month of the twelve in San Francisco, and I am fully prepared to credit the 
statement, for I found September far more pleasant on my return from Oregon. 
I shall say more of the city in subsequent pages of this -report. 

On leaving San Francisco Mr. Crawley proceeded to Los Angeles County, 
where he still remains, and in such a vastly improved state of health that his 
mother with her entire family have determined to follow him, and will do so in 
May or 'June. My nephew and myself took the Southern Pacffic cars on 
Wednesday afternoon and went over the Santa Clara Valley on the west side of 
the Bay, to San Jose (pronounced San Ozay). This is said to be the most 
beautiful and fertile valley in the State, and lands rate very high, though I have 
little doubt they will go much higher as San Francisco continues to grow and 
develop. San Jose is a lovely little city of probably fifteen or twenty thousand 
inhabitants, and Santa Clara lies within two or three miles, being connected by 
street railway. The California State Normal School is located at San Jose, oc- 
cupying a beautiful building especially arranged for its purposes. This place is 
also favored with other fine schools of lesser grades, churches and other ad- 
vantages of a ciyilized community. The Southern Pacific Railroad is finished 
to Soledad, 143 miles south of San Francisco, and will be continued on 
to its connection with the railway system of Southern California. 

The Southern Pacific Railroad is most favorably located through the valleys 
of Santa Clara, San Juan, Pajaro <pd Salinas, embracing territory the area of 
which is about 6600 square miles, or greater in extent than the States of Rhode 




J 2 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

Island and Connecticut, and nearly as large as Massachusetts. The advantages 
of soil and climate are unequaled, the. land being peculiarly adapted to the va- 
rious kinds of agriculture, portions of the valleys receiving moisture from the 
sea fogs, thereby insuring an abundant harvest. . These valleys produce prolifi- 
cally vegetables and grains of all kinds in wonderful abundance, as also almonds 
and other nuts, and the various kinds of fruits in absolute perfection, from the 
tropical to the hardy northern varieties. The soil is peculiarly adapted to the 
culture of tobacco, the yield per acre being some 4500 pounds, large portions 
being equal in quality to the best Havana. 

Leaving San Jose after breakfast on Thursday morning, we changed cars 
at Niles and again at Sacramento for Redding. There seem to be some fine 
lands on this last railroad (the Oregon division of the Central Pacific), and par- 
ticularly between Marysville and Red Bluffs, and it is surprising that the whole 
of them are not thickly settled, for I was informed that they could be purchased 
at low figures, and especially those belonging to the Railroad Company. 

From Redding to Roseburg, Oregon — the present terminus of the Oregon 
and California Railroad — we traveled by stage two hundred and seventy-five 
miles, leaving the former at midnight on Thursday and reaching the latter at 
daybreak on Saturday morning, and starting immediately northward. The 
stage trip would have been a delightful one had it not been for the dust, which 
.was excessive, but even with this we did not become fatigued, and rather en- 
joyed the whole trip, though I have since regretted that I did not stop at the 
Soda Spring, and visit Mount Shasta, of whose snow-crowned peak we had a 
full view on Thursday and even on Friday. 

Jacksonville was the first, as it is one of the oldest, Oregon towns that we 
saw. It is situated at the head of Rogue River Valley, where we first saw evi- 
dences of agricultural enterprise — or field for it — in the State, though the (as 
appeared to me) inaccessibility of the country from markets, seems to render it 
undesirable as a farming country. The Umpqua Valley is another rich and 
fertile agricultural section north of the Rogue River, and is penetrated by the 
Oregon and California Railroad. I learned that the farmers generally were 
satisfied with their possessions and none anxious to sell, which is a fact that 
always speaks well for any country. Passing several handsome villages and 
towns, including Eugene City, the seat of the State University, we left the rail- 
road at Albany, the county seat of Linn (one of the best counties, as Albany is 
one of the most thriving towns in the State), took a two-horse hack after dinner, 
and in less than two hours dismounted at Corvallis, the county seat of Benton, 
another good county, and ten miles above Albany on the opposite (west) bank 
o e Willamette River. Besides these two counties and towns we subse- 
quently visited Salem, Portland, Lafayette (Yamhill County), and made a 
charming trip up the Columbia River to Dalles City, spending the whole of 
August in the State. And now I will give frankly my impressions of Oregon. 

It is a comparatively young and sparsely settled State, the population. being 
ess than one hundred and twenty-five thousand. I must say that the first im- 
pressions I formed were rather unfavorable than otherwise. I thought that 



CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 73 

large land-owners held their lands too high* to induce immigration, especially of 
people who would be compelled to sell very low and on long time, and receive 
currency and pay out gold. I expressed the opinion that men with families had 
better postpone going there to settle until they could carry money enough to 
stock their farms and live comfortably one year, or to get away in case they 
became dissatisfied. I have never changed or modified that opinion, though I 
am free to admit that I do not believe any man would ever wish to leave after 
he once became settled, unless he found the winters too wet and depressing to 
suit his constitution. The climate during the whole of my sojourn I found to 
be perfectly delightful, and while my family were suffering in Mississippi, in a 
temperature which they described as being, even at night, a good deal similar 
.to the hot air of a furnace, though windows and doors were all open, I was 
sleeping comfortably under two and four blankets nightly, with every window 
and door closed. Qld citizens warned me against being too enthusiastic on this 
subject, as the winters were very trying to new-comers. I can now say, how- 
ever (ist March, 1875), tnat m 7 nephew remained at -Albany, . and writes that 
though old citizens tell him the winter has been unusually severe, it has scarcely 
been as- rainy, and no colder than he has experienced during ordinary winters 
here. He is free from dyspepsia and has gained some twenty-four pounds in 
flesh. 

The Willamette Valley may be regarded as the garden spot of Oregon, 
though I was very favorably impressed with both Yamhill and Polk counties. 
What I thought to be most needed in Oregon was capital, enterprise, and rail- 
roads, though for the population there is a pretty fair proportion of all. There 
is abundant room for more people, industrious, energetic people, and they 
would do well there. Lands may be bought all the way from Government 
price (one dollar and a quarter) up to one hundred and fifty dollars per acre, 
according to location and improvements. The average along and near the line 
of the railroads is- from twenty to thirty dollars, and terms can always be made 
satisfactory to purchasers upon payment of a small proportion in cash. It must 
be borne in mind, however, that in Oregon, as in California, specie is the only 
recognized. circulating medium, and there, instead of buying gold with "green- 
backs," as here, they sell the latter for the former, and the rates are governed 
pretty closely by the New York money market. 

I was not, I confess, favorably impressed with the economical policy which 
erects costly public buildings, and pays the governor a salary of fifteen hundred 
dollars, and the supreme judges (who have circuit duty to perform also) two 
thousand. It seemed to me to be a singular 'combination — or perhaps incon- 
gruity — of extravagance and parsimony, intended perhaps, but very mistakenly, 
to attract immigration with the idea of low taxes. To command the best talent 
for the offices the pay should be at least double what it is. 

From Portland, the business metropolis (Salem being the political), I 
sailed on the magnificent steamship John L. Stephens, on Thursday evening, 
the third of September, and after a charming sea voyage, in which my only 
disappointment was occasioned by my not being seasick at all on the trip* 



74 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

reached San Francisco as before, on Sunday night about nine o'clock, bearing- 
away with me abundant pleasant memories of the kind and hospitable people 
among whom I had been sojourning for a month. The people all seem cheer- 
ful and prosperous, and I did not see a beggar during my entire stay on. the 
Coast. I regard those portions of Oregon visited by me as eminently healthy, 
and upon weighing, the day I left, I found that I had gained sixteen pounds in 
weight since the 23d of July. 

From San Francisco I went down to Santa Barbara on the " Ventura," one 
of the Goodall, Nelson & Perkins' line of coast steamers. The trip was pleas- 
ant, though the steamer, being long and narrow, rolled considerably. 

Santa Barbara, the county seat of Santa Barbara County, is situated imme- 
diately on the coast, amply protected from the bleak winds by a high point of 
land, and is visited only by an even, uniform and delightful sea breeze. It has 
grown rapidly and astonishingly in the past three or four years, and is a place of 
very considerable winter resort by invalids and others from the Northern States 
on this side of the Rocky Mountains. During my visit, I was the guest of an 
old quondam Mississippi neighbor and friend, Mr. A. A. Oglesby, who was 
kind enough to take me in his buggy to see some of the fine farms lying back 
and north of. the town, and among others that of Col. W. W. Hollister, the 
master-spirit and millionaire of that portion of California, who has one of the 
most beautiful and highly improved places I saw, and is entering largely upon 
the cultivation of almonds. Lands rate high, and the only place I heard of at 
all as being for sale, was a few miles beyond Col. Hollister's, and the price 
then was twenty-five dollars per acre. I don't know tvhat it is nozu, for lands 
seem to be constantly going up in that locality. 

From Santa Barbara I had a pleasant, and in one respect very novel trip, 
by stage, to Los Angeles. Soon after leaving Carpenteria, the sea and moun- 
tains came together so precipitately, that for six miles our team trotted through 
the ocean surf. I felt rather " squamish " at first, but soon found that there 
was not the slightest danger, and it was so perfectly delightful and exhilarating, 
that I regretted when this, my first experiment at navigating an ocean in a six- 
horse stage, ended in our return to the dusty road. Supping at San Buena- 
ventura, we traveled all night, and reached Los Angeles the next morning at 
six o'clock. 

At Los Angeles I saw gentlemen wearing the first summer (linen) outer gar- 
ments I had seen worn since leaving Omaha, and found the climate warmer 
than I had anywhere felt it west of the Rocky Mountains, except, perhaps, in 
the Sacramento Valley. This is* said to be the climate for persons suffering 
from pulmonary complaints, and one gentleman whom I had known in Mem- 
phis, Tennessee, years ago (Mr. Chamberlin, of the real-estate firm of Ban- 
croft & Chamberlin in Los Angeles), told me he had arrived there a few months 
before, a helpless invalid, and he was able, during my visit, to walk with me for 
miles, in and about tne city, without more fatigue than I myself suffered, if as 
much. Later, Mr. Bancroft took me through the suburbs in his buggy, and I 
saw some of the most lovely orange groves and vineyards I ever saw in my 



CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 7 5 

life, and some of the finest orchards and vegetables. I brought home with me — 
perfectly sound — a pear which I plucked from a tree while going through an 
orchard, and ate more grapes at one time than I would be willing to eat here 
in a week, and without the least unpleasant result. 

Los Angeles is destined to be an important city — indeed it is already so, 
with its railway lines completed and projected, giving it quick access to and 
from other portions of the State, including Arizona. The Southern Pacific 
Railroad has four branches centering at Los Angeles: one northward to San 
Fernando, twenty-two miles, which will eventually become a portion of the 
through line to San Francisco and the East; one westward to Wilmington, twenty- 
one miles, the seaport for this section of country; one southward to Anaheim, 
twenty-six miles, which in time will be extended to San Diego; the fourth line 
eastward to Spadra, San Bernardino, Colton and San Gorgonia; the latter point 
being about eighty miles from Los Angeles, will at an early day be pushed 
through to Arizona, to form a connection with the Texas and Pacific Railroad, 
thus jointly making a second overland all rail route between San Francisco via 
Los Angeles and the Southern States. True, the climate was rather warmer 
than I fancied, but to those who desire such, it is entirely suited. Many Mis- 
sissippians live about Los Angeles, and among them Hon. Volney E. Howard, 
whose excellent Supreme Court Reports make his name a household word with 
every lawyer in this State. I called to see him, but his son and partner informed 
me that he was at the time in San Francisco. 

From Los Angeles I went by rail to San Fernando, and thence by stage to 
Bakersfield, where, after crossing Kern River, I took the rail again for San Fran- 
cisco, breakfasting at Merced, and reaching the Golden City about one o'clock, 
p.m. Fresno, Tulare, Merced and Kern Counties offer fine inducements to 
farmers, the lands being very rich and productive, and I think the finest corn I 
ever saw growing anywhere, was on Kern River near Bakersfield (Sumner sta- 
tion). All through the valley, quite a large number of irrigating canals are being 
constructed, which will render it quite a paradise, and an unsurpassed vineyard 
"egion. The route traversed the great San Joaquin Valley all the way up to 
Lathrop, and indeed to the junction with the main line of the Central Pacific 
(of which this Southern road is the Visalia branch), and this valley is recog- 
nized as the great agricultural section of the State. Fresno is destined to be- 
come the commercial centre of the valley. All the desirable lands are pretty 
well taken up and occupied, and I found but few persons who were willing to 
sell, which speaks well for the country. 

I have regretted since, that I did not visit Sonoma, Marin, Napa, Yolo 
and other counties north of the bay, but my time being limited, I was compelled 
to satisfy myself with the highly favorable representations I received of these 
and other unvisited counties. 

I left California fully impressed with the belief that industrious, energetic 
men, with or without capital, but panicularly the former, may find suitable and 
profitable homes in almost any 'portion of the State. Thinking it might contain 
information valuable to many who will read this paper, I clipped the following 



J 6 CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 

paragraph from a Los Angeles paper, and believe it will apply equally to other 
portions of the State: 

"The following is a fair average rate of wages paid in Los Angeles: Farm- 
ing hands, $30 per month; laborers, per day, $2.25; shoemakers, $4.00; car- 
penters, $4.00; masons, $5.00; plasterers, $5.00; painters, $3.50; plumbers, 
$5.00; gasfitters, $5.00; blacksmiths, $4.00; wagonmakers, $4.00; carriage 
painters, $5.00; harnessmakers, $3.00; tinsmiths, $3.50; cabinet makers, 
$3.50; stair builders, $4.50; house servants, $30 per month (very scarce)." 

In this connection I would refer the reader to the February number of the 
"Resources of California," which contains a four-column article which em- 
braces thorough and complete information on the subject of wages in every 
branch of business known on the Pacific Coast. 

A person buying a ticket from New. York, Chicago, St. Louis, or other 
point at- which tickets are sold, gets it to San Francisco. If they go without 
having previously determined upon a location, the better plan would be to 
branch out from San Francisco (leaving their families, if any, there or over at 
Oakland in comfortable quarters), till they find the desired spot. Half-hourly 
ferry boats run between San Francisco and Oakland, giving quick and frequent 
connections between the two cities. * Should Oregon be the objective State, 
then Portland, Salem, or Albany, would be the resting-place, until a permanent 
location is selected. 

The prices of lands I found to vary, as in the States east of the Rocky 
Mountains, according to locality, improvements, and market facilities; and while 
good lands may be had as low as a dollar and a quarter in some counties distant 
-north and south from San Francisco and the coast in the one State, and Portland 
and the railroads and rivers in the other, yet, taking the advantages and pleasures 
of schools, society, churches, markets, and all others into consideration, I should 
regard those lands the cheapest for which the purchaser would be required to 
pay from twenty to thirty-five dollars per acre. Throughout every portion of 
Oregon timber seems to be abundant_/"<?r all purposes, and indeed offers a highly 
profitable field, for the lumber business on an extensive scale, and the same may 
be said as to some portions of California, though at Los Angeles I found the 
price of wood for fuel as high as ten dollars per cord. 

Both Oregon and California, and particularly the latter, produce the finest 
fruits I have ever seen. Pears, apples, peaches, grapes, figs, and in some por- 
tions of the State, oranges, lemons, limes, olives, bananas, almonds, and what 
we call "English walnuts," grow to perfection, and are cultivated with consid- 
erable success and profit in California. The small fruits, such as strawberries, 
raspberries, blackberries, plums, and damsons, flourish luxuriantly in both 
States, but, except in a few localities, peaches do not thrive in Oregon, and 
pears and apples ripen later than they do in California, for while I found them 
abundant in the latter State in August and September, I was told they did not 
ripen thoroughly in the former till towards Christmas. Game of all kinds, ex- 
cept wild turkey and our partridge, is abundant in both States, and I had some 
pleasant sport shooting grouse in Oregon. Trout fishing is said to be fine in 



CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. >]>] 

nearly all running streams, and salmon is found in the Sacramento River of 
California, and the Columbia River of Oregon, while the mountains contain 
plenty of deer, bear, and occasionally a panther or "California lion." 

I could give some statistics of the products of the two States, but deeming 
it unimportant, and this paper being already longer than I intended it, I will 
simply state that while as high as eighty-five, and as low as fifteen bushels of 
wheat have been raised to the acre, the average where the land is well cultivated 
is about thirty. I heard, upon good authority, of one gentleman in Napa or 
Yolo, California (or perhaps Sonoma), who seeded a crop thoroughly and har- 
vested forty bushels per acre, and for the three or four succeeding years, without 
plowing a furrow, reaped twenty bushels per acre from volunteer crops on the 
same land. Alfalfa grass, gives three crops per season. Horses, cattle, and 
sheep, may be purchased at low figures, and they are lower in Oregon than in 
California. * 

In conclusion, friends are writing to me from different portions of the 
Union, and asking if I liked the Pacific Coast well enough to emigrate thither. 
The best and most explicit answer I can give to the enquiry is: "All the 
property I own in Mississippi is for sale at a sacrifice, with a view to that very 
thing." 

J. F. Simmons. 
Sardis, Mississippi, March i, 1875. 



78 



CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 



I have concluded to annex the following tables, showing the climate of 
California as compared with other places. That of Oregon is very nearly the 
same. I will take pleasure in answering letters, should any other information J 
in my power to furnish be desired. J. F. S. 



CALIFORNIA CLIMATE, 

The following table shows the mean temperature of January and July in 
various portions of California, and other States and countries, taken from reliable 

sources: 



San Francisco. 
Monterey 
Santa Barbara. 
Los Angeles . . , 

Jurupa 

San Diego. . . . 
San Luis Rey . . 
Sacramento.. , 

Stockton , 

Humboldt Bay 
Sonoma ..*.., 
St, Helena . . . 
Vallejo ....... 

Antioch 

Fresno 

Fort Jones 
Fort Reading. , 
Fort Yuma 
Cincinnati . . . . 
New York 
New Orleans , . 

Naples 

Jerusalem 

Honolulu 

Mexico 

Funchal 

London 

Dijon 

Bordeaux 

Mentpne 

Marseilles 

Genoa 

Algiers 



JANUARY . 


JULY. 


DIFFER- 
ENCE. 


LATITUDE. 


Degrees. 


Degrees. 


Degrees. 


Deg. Min. 


49 


57 


8 


37 48 


■ 52 


58 


6 


36 3 6 


54 


7i 


17 


34 24 


52 


75 


23 


34 04 


54 


73 


19 


34 02 


5i 


72 


21 


32 41 


52 


70 


18 


33 15 


45 


73 


28 


38 34 


49 


72 


23 


37 5 6 


40 


58 


18 


40 44. 


45 


66 


21 


38 18 


42 


77 


35 


3S 30 


48 


67 


19 


38 05 


43 


70 


27 


38 03 


47 


90 


43 


37 00 


34 


7i 


37. 


41 40 


44 


82 


38 


40 28 


56 


92 


36 


S 2 43 


30 


74 


44 


39 06 


31 


77 


42 


40 37 


55 


82 


27 


29 57 


46 


76 


30 


40 52 


47 


77 


30 


31 47 


7i 


• 78 


7 


21 16 


52 


65 


13 


19 26 


60 


70 


10 


32 38 


37 


62 


25 


5i 29 


oj 


70 


37 • 


47 25 


41 


73 


32 


44 50 


40 


73 


33 


43 4i 


43 


75 


32 


43 17 


46 


77 


3i 


44 24 


52 


. 75 


23 


36 47 



CALIFORNIA AND OREGON. 



79 



Monthly Record of the Climate of California, and some other 

Prominent Points. 

Our Eastern and European readers can compare our genial climate with 
theirs, and at once discover the difference. 



PLACES. 



San Francisco . . 

Vallejo 

Sacramento 

Fresno 

Fort Reading . . . 

Fort Yuma 

St. Helena 

Vacaville 

Meadow Valley. 

Fort Jones 

Grass Valley . . . 

New York 

New Orleans. . . 
Steilacoom 

London 

City of Mexico . . 

Naples 

Funchal 

Honolulu 

Jerusalem 

Canton 

Nagasaki 



55 
59 
67 
68 

65 
76 
66 
66 
6i 
5i 
49 
57 
75 
55 
53 
66 
64 
64 
76 
66 
77 



57 
"7 
73 
QO 
82 
92 
77 
74 
7i 
7i 
63 
73 
82 
64 
62 

65 

76 
70 
78 
77 
83 
80 



64 
66 
76 

7i 

86 
66 

72 

57 
62 

53 
66 

78 
57 
57 
64 
69 
72 

78 

72 
80 
78 



58 47 

65 57 
53 I 47 



54 
58 
59 
66 
62 
73 

'52' 



46 

51 
69 

5° 
49 
60 
60 
65 
75 
62 
69 
62 



9 



I. TUSTIN'S PATENT 

rjk wiiD-iMi § ion: 



m 






The Simplicity and Perfection of these Machines is the result 

We v have made the manu- 
facture of Pumping Ma- 
chinery a specialty for the 
past twenty-six years in 
California. Beceived all 
the First Premiums award- 
ed .by the Mechanics' In- 
stitute for the past eight 
year, in our line. 

THE ECLIFSE-For 1 Horse. 




of 26 years' experience in California. 

THE DAIRY Q,UEEN. 




Designed especially for the use 
of Dairymen. 




Fact' y § Office, lease St San Franelso 



Choice Residence Prop^ 






Only One Hour's Ride from San Francisco, 
On the Overland and San Jose Railroad. 

The greatest bargains ever offered in California, to those 
who want HOMESTEADS. 

HALF A MILE FROM RAILROAD STATION. 
TWO MILES FROM EAST OAKLAND. 

Eleven 12-Acre Farms, 

Three 11- Acre Farms, 

One 9- Acre Farm, 

One 4--Acre Farm. 

Land that will produce anything without irrigation. A 
splendid creek runs through the Tract. 

The Mills Seminary within one mile of the tract. 

CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS NEAR BY. « 

All varieties of Fruits that are raised in Alameda County, 
can be raised on this tract. 

The Brooklyn Land Company offers for sale the above 
mentioned property at low figures, and upon most liberal 
terms. 

Ten per cent, cash; Ten per cent, in six months; and 
Twenty per cent, annually thereafter, with interest on de- 
ferred payments at Ten per cent, per annum. 

For fidl particulars, apply at the office of the 

CALIFORNIA IMMIGRANT UNION, 

328 Montgomery Street, Room 22, 

Elevator on First Floor. SAN FRANCISCO 

WM. H. MABTIN, Gen'l Age*** 



. oml£ IN LOS ANGfcii r flR¥ 0F C0NGRESS 

^» ♦ ■ » j'l 

017 064 398 7 # 

A portion of the Meserve and Loop Tract of th t, -— 

SAN JOSE RANCHO 

Situated about Thirty miles from Los Angeles City, 
near the Southern Pacific Kailroad, 

is now offered for sale at extremely low prices, when the combined ad- 
vantages are considered. 

All the cereals — with corn, potatoes and beans — can be profitably 
cultivated, yet its peculiar adaptability for semi-tropical fruits and nuts 
give the latter greatly the pecuniary advantage. The soil is the same as 
the famous orange belt of San Gabriel, with 800 feet more elevation, I 
thereby giving almost entire immunity from fogs and frost. 




Its distinguishing traits are 
Salubrious climate; healthy locality; good soil; running- 
stream of water ; Perfect Title; rapidly improving 
neighborhood ; railroad facilities ; proximity 
q to flowing artesian wells, with an 

almost absolute certainty 
of striking a flowing well upon any portion of it, if wanted, 
although the improvements to be earned OUt at 
Once, will furnish ample water for all 
irrigation purposes. 

Almond Trees set out in February are now in fine condition, although 
some have not had any water for five months, as a test. 

Uninterrupted railway communication with San Francisco inside of 
a year. 

TERMS EAST, For particulars, inquire of 

W. H. MARTIN, General Ag't California Immigrant Union, 
534 California Street and 328 Montgomery Street* 

C. E. CHUBBUCK, Los Angeles. 

A. R. MESERVE, Santa Cruz. 

W. T. MICHAELS, at the Ranch. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



017 064 398 7 



